Xehorista Tora
by asprosdrakos
Summary: More battle, now with zombies!
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I don't own, not making any money, you won't get much if you sue me. Nothing actually, so don't bother.  
  
/.../ - italics  
//...// - thoughts  
*...* - mindspeech/telepathy  
- speech (duh)  
----------------- - Scene change, flashback, dreaming (it's a multi-purpose stream of dashes)   
  
Send all questions, comments, etc. to: asprosdracos@hotmail.com  
  
This is eventual shounen-ai, but nothing concrete yet...flames because of pairing will be dealt with...harshly...actually, flame away, it's nice to have something to laugh at. Bigotry is amusing.  
  
  
**Xehorista Tora  
**  
By Asprosdracos  
  
-----------------  
  
i'm just trying to talk to you between the raindrops   
rain falls on everyone the same old rain   
and i'm just trying to walk with you between the raindrops   
rain falls on everyone the same old rain   
and i'm just trying to walk with you between the raindrops   
and i'm just trying to walk with you between the raindrops.  
  
- Raindrops and Sun Showers The Smashing Pumpkins, _Machina  
_  
-----------------  
  
The world was drowning, and Cloud was drowning with it. All of heaven, the Promised Land above, had opened its gates, and the result was the pouring rain, drowning the unfortunate human, swirling the colors of the earth into muted tones of brown, green and the gray of the far off city.  
  
Although, Cloud never was sure, sometimes, if there was a Promised Land, despite what Aeris told him then, despite the power of the souls of the Lifestream, holding him here, in this time, this place.  
  
This memory.  
  
Through this dismal day, Cloud walked toward the gray beyond. The mud pulled him down, and the rain pushed him down. The added weight of wet clothes and cloak weighed down the fighter. It was just another burden to bear, another problem. But today, of all days, in this time and place, Cloud Strife did not need anymore problems.  
  
The gray before him was enough for his lifetime.  
  
Midgar.  
  
The city was bustling with activity, even looking at it from so high above it, on this rocky outcropping, mako powered lights warding off the dusk, fireflies in the gloom, the distant sound of the train that circled around the central pillar to the station in the slums below...  
  
A Midgar before Meteor.  
  
A dead Midgar, one that didn't exist anymore. This world was perfect in a way that his was not, had not been since the start of everything. Still, Cloud felt a tension in the soul of the planet, an offbeat pulse, and the sadness of knowing too much echoed through him.  
  
Mako eyes looked out on the city, dulled by the rain into a haze of light and gray. Cloud knew gray, knew how blood looked on sharp gray steel, knew how Zack's blood had looked on the hard gray of outcropping like this one, those years in the past...and the future.  
  
It had hurt so much then, that it was easier to let the rain wash away the blood, and with it his memories, so that it never happened, so that as long as he was Cloud Strife, SOLDIER First Class, Zackery wasn't dead.   
  
But now, he didn't have to pretend. He was who he was, and the present was preferable to this waking dream, a collective memory wrought in sorrow and guilt.   
  
//You sure you'll be okay, Spike?//  
  
Zack was always worrying, always concerned, so caring and calm. If Cloud could repay that, he'd do anything, do anything to stop things from happening.  
  
People can't change, the past can't change, life is all one deep rut drawn in the dark of the earth...but it was all he had. All they had, and Cloud would protect that. He'd stop this....stop it.  
  
I'll be fine, Zack, just fine.  
  
Speaking aloud to the empty air crowded with raindrops, Cloud's soft voice was drowned out in the downpour. It didn't matter, as by the time the words faded, the cliff was empty, the man descended, swallowed by the rain, and the gray.  
  
-----------------  
  
SOLDIER headquarters at Shinra was always a busy place, the bustle of scientists, fighters and military personnel impossible to avoid at any time. At sometimes of the year it was intolerable, such as in the fall, when new recruits came into the program, and whenever the president showed up, or like now, when the SOLDIERS put on an obligatory demonstration to the newbies. It was enough to make someone head spin, being around that many people, and to this young man, it was more then he could take, sometimes.   
  
The painfully shy do not play well with large crowds.  
  
Still, to some degree the young man was used to it, so it would have taken a practiced eye to detect the slight shiver of cold from being outside so long, in such a thin outfit, or the slender flinch that spread through the young body at the synchronized shouts.  
  
And a practiced eye was exactly what a certain SOLDIER possessed.   
  
The boy jumped as a strong hand fell onto his soldier, the man sneaking up behind him with his normal awkward grace...no, not awkward, more playful, exuberant in a way the boy knew he would never be.   
  
You don't want to be sick again, get back to the dorm, alright?  
  
A pause then, the brief negative emotion at the fact that he should get back to his dorm, was that fragile that he couldn't sty out here with the rest of the cadets and watch the Second Class fight, passed through the boy, before he crushed it beneath the fact that despite being a friend, he had still been given an order by one of his superiors.  
  
He had so many, as was expected, not that it helped his self esteem any, but since the boy did not have much of that to begin with, the harm was inconsequential. As the boy walked toward the main building, his gaze clouded and turned inward, thoughts scrolled across his mind like the clouds in a fast paced wind.   
  
He didn't want to be helpless, to be weak, and he knew he was doing better, but sometimes it just hurt so much, to curse his slender frame, curse the boys born, it seemed, with the muscles and constitution to be wanted he wanted, what he had to be.  
  
And beneath all of that was always the reminder, childhood memories surfacing with malicious intent...he had to make it into SOLDIER...because that was all there was, all he knew he could be.  
  
The point of no return, no going back from here.  
  
Couldn't go back home a failure, he had been that in his life far too often, couldn't let everyone down, to tell his Mother that he didn't make it. He would not do that...wouldn't fail everyone at home who believed in him. Believed in worthless him. It was a foreign concept, to imagine that others could think he had worth, that others thought he was worthwhile. He would be sorry, and distraught, to let them dow-  
  
  
  
The sound, soft and quiet on against the steady soft of the rain, fought against the weather, to be heard, acknowledged. It was stopped by the other voice, the man he had grazed slightly, lost in his thoughts.  
  
Don't worry about it. Just be careful, Cloud.  
  
With that, the man was gone, his cloak gently passing over the air as he moved away, a picture of quiet grace, leaving the young boy to stare at him for several minutes as he stood at the edge of the crowd, confusion running through his mind.  
  
//How did he know my name?//  
  
  
  
A shout then, Cloud turned, looked up to see Zack coming toward him, concern on the normally grinning face. Sometimes it seemed as if Zack had no middle territory in emotions, it was all or nothing.  
  
You alright? I thought you would have gotten to your quarters by now.  
  
Normally, he would hate that worry, the fact that there was a need for it, that he had to be worried about. At the present, confusion was predominant in his mind. If the man was personnel, he could know his name, but he'd be in uniform, and he certainly wasn't. Random people, to his knowledge, didn't just wander through SOLDIER training and headquarters.  
  
Zack, sir, who's that?  
  
A sigh from his superior. How many times have do I have to tell you before I drill it into your chocobo head? Drop the sir unless we're in a drill, Spike. Who?  
  
The man in the dark cloak over there.  
  
I don't know, never seen him before, why do you ask?  
  
A pause, hesitation, but no more than was usual, coming from the petite blond. His hesitation was very much an integral part of his shyness.  
  
No reason, Si-Zack. It's not important.  
  
Well, Spike, I don't know who he is.  
  
Zack was lying, but he didn't know that.  
  
-----------------  
  
It had been easier than it should have been, to sneak into SOLDIER headquarters. He knew the old passcodes, a string of numbers and letters that identified him as a recruit, SOLDIER, visitor, or arms dealer. Reeve had given them to him, and the man was President of Midgar, so even if Cloud could never truly treat the man as his superior, having fought with the giant Cait Sith moggle version of him, he could respect that he knew what he was doing.  
  
Hopefully.  
  
Still, he expected someone to stop him, anyone to wonder about the unusual shape of his cloak over his back, but they were all busy with the demonstration. And the security was just lax...if they were at the Midgar Cloud knew, they'd be dead.  
  
That was unfair, because if they were home, the security would be tighter. It came with the territory, so to speak. Besides, if he was right, the Wutui war was over, complete domination of Shinra assured, so the whole of Shinra had a reason to be lax, to celebrate.  
  
They did not know that that these were the times to worry about, the times when you were celebrating and happy. To fall from on high made the realization that you could not fly all the more painful, so the world always waited for the good times for everything to come caving in.  
  
//Spike, you are one pessimistic brat, you know that?//  
  
A smile, quiet radiance, broke out on his face at his remembrance of another's joking mockery. He had never been open and charming, full of quiet calm and fury rather than smiles...but there were still people who could make him laugh.   
  
No matter how bad things got, there were still people, people who could make him smile.  
  
Still, he wasn't in the past to reflect on it. The power of science and lifestream, the collective memory of thousands upon millions of souls could only hold him here for so long before he would phase back, but that was alright. He had time, it would happen soon, and before he had to go back.  
  
He was sure of it.  
  
The SOLDIERS' united shouts rang into the air, hammer upon anvil, forging a sword out of the new recruits, taking their idolism and shaping it, their dreams, bent to /be/ there, one day. His heart twisted slightly, seeing himself, still not out of the rain, with Zack beside him, watching the perfect steps of the fighters, the rain dulling there blue uniforms to tin gray.  
  
//A whole pack of tin soldiers...and I had wanted to be like them, to fit in to be one of that box, one in the same.//  
  
He didn't know, now, whether he was sad or happy that he had never gotten that dream. Sighing, his eyes raked over the crowd, searching for him, for the one who would always stand out. He felt his heart catch in his throat when he saw him.  
  
A welcoming darkness among the gray, strange that the man still wore leather with the raindrops falling harder now, the silver hair shining through the gloom, that setting him off as much as his height, and the fact that the air itself seemed to become still in his presence, reverent. The man turned, and Cloud saw the eyes, a brilliant jade, stern and commanding, not alight with the fires of madness, nor shining with the softness of compassion.   
  
Both sets of eyes Cloud knew. This was the man he had known, and Cloud would have wanted only to stand here, in his presence and forget, forget everything.  
  
But the planet was screaming. All the players were here, and it was time to move the pieces.   
  
All good things end, and nothing lasts forever, not even death. No matter how many times he killed, it would still come back.  
  
But Cloud wouldn't give up, wouldn't bow to the inevitability of fate, hated accepting anything, because...   
  
//To accept is to give up. To die, to lay down and let them come. To be a failure, and I will /not/ be a failure.//  
  
Not his words, Cloud didn't think himself as eloquent in words, but a borrowed expression does just as well in a pinch, and chuckling to himself, Cloud let the cloak fall off, drawing stares now, the Ultima Weapon was a bit hard to miss, they'd be attacking soon.  
  
They shouldn't bother, they had bigger /things/ to worry about.  
  
Drawing his weapon and schooling his expression to careful blankness, Cloud slipped out of the grip of the approaching Shinra security and charged.  
  
----------------  
  
Zack barely had time to register the movement of the man that Cloud had pointed out to him, before the man had thrown off the cloak covering him and was charging into the crowd of trainees and troopers. So swift was the man that he was he was only a blur, a flash of blue eyes and tied down blond hair.   
  
And one really big sword.  
  
Shit! Intruder, intruder in the courtyard, SOLDIERS, on alert. Detain the intruder!  
  
There was never time to think in situations like these, those that sprung up out of nowhere, to surprise and destroy those unaware. There wasn't time to think, only to react, and Zack reacted as his training dictated.   
  
Detain the intruder, use force if necessary.  
  
Or if you could.  
  
That was a questionable point, because the man was just so fast, fast enough that he couldn't be a regular human, but there was no one like that in the ranks, and as second in command, Zack knew who was where and when. It was part of his job after all, and he would certainly have noticed someone in the ranks who was fast enough so that he himself, running all out in the cramped space, dodging people for all he was worth, was not gaining on him. Sure, the man wasn't pulling away as he neared the demonstration stand, but he wasn't getting any closer either.  
  
He couldn't claim that the man wasn't weighed down as he was either, the sword on his back easily carrying the same weight as the Buster sword Zack used and carried. At least neither of them could draw in the crowd like this, and the second class weren't useless, standing ready to detain the man who leapt up into the air, pulling his broad sword out as he did, landing on the platform, not sliding, despite the slickness of the rain soaked surface.   
  
The Seconds should be able to handle him, there was only one of him, and so many of them...  
  
Zack stopped. Stopped running, stopped even thinking, as did those that had not yet evacuated the area, unable to comprehend the sight before him.  
  
//Who...what...is this guy?//  
  
The SOLDIER fell, the first cut down by the flat of the impressive sword that the man handled as if he had been born to do so. There was a twirl, and the Second's standard blade flew high into the air, out of the fighter's hands, the man falling before his sword hit the ground, the blade shining softly, washed clean in the rain.   
  
And then there were seven.  
  
Wary now of sharing their comrades fate, two charged as one, the attacking leader leaping over the head of the man to land behind him, following up with a swift side strike that would have cut the man in two had in connected and not met his sword, the impact knocking the blade out the Second's hands, a sidekick delivered to the man's head knocking him off the platform, full of the power of his turn as he blocked the downward strike of the Second on the other side, quickly disabling him.  
  
Bringing the count down to five. Four as the remaining numbers charged together, safety in numbers the driving, futile thought. The man was behind the leader, so swift that it was as if the rain hadn't had time to occupy the space he had left, a dry section among the damp. One stroke with the flat of the blade and he went down, the man flipping over the rest, which left Zack to wonder how one could flip over people with the weight of that sword, never mind land safely.   
  
Four people left, and they had turned by now, watching him, waiting for him to make his move, defense the best offense they could afford in the face of superior skill. Silent and still, the man didn't move, staring at them. The tension stretched to something unbreakable, the ever present rain the only sound. In the lull, Zack felt rather than heard - one could /never/ hear the man - Sephiroth come up next to him, the tall presence reassuring as always.  
  
Aren't you going to help them or stop him, Sephiroth?  
  
As soon as he finishes with the Seconds.  
  
Umm...Seph? Nice to know you have such faith in the rest of the troops, but what good will that do?  
  
To come into the fight now, against a skilled opponent, would do far more harm than good. It could result in the death of one of the remaining fighters. Besides, he's not aiming to kill, he's working hard to avoid doing so.  
  
Zack paused, considering this. It was true, the man had only attacked the fighters with the flat of the blade of his broad sword, an act that spoke for his skill. Zack used a sword like the stranger's, the Buster sword was of roughly the same dimensions, and in the same weapons class. The sword had enough inertia and weight to deal with, swinging it with the flat to strike meant swinging that side into the wind, causing an incredible amount of air resistance and drag. Large swords could be handled because they cut through the air as they were swung. It made the weight and size possible.   
  
To force a sword like that bluntly through the air would not only result in slow, pained swings, but muscle fatigue and would most likely get the swordsman killed. It took incredible skill not to kill with a sword, but still fight as well as someone who was aiming to murder.   
  
Zack knew now that he could give that man a good fight, but he'd have to leave it to Seph, and hope nobody got hurt.   
  
Or rather, leave it to Seph, and hope he was close enough to cast a good cure spell, but nicely shielded by impact resistant concrete, perhaps in the form of a pillar or two. Although, if he had Heiddiger down here, he'd probably do as well...Palmer did not have the height to hide a crouching fighter.  
  
The thought of trying to accomplish such a feat, and how to purge his mind after doing so, removed the man from his view as effectively as the aforementioned big boned executives would have. So Zack missed the man swing his sword around his hand and onto his back, a move that would have had his attention, and not just because it was idiocy to sheath a sword before the end of a fight.   
  
The move, had Zack seen it, would have been immediately recognized as something he was working on, and could just about do without cleaving his skull in two.   
  
This epiphany might have changed things, forced all of he nagging thoughts about the man to a culmination, but he didn't see it.  
  
The fire spell, on the other hand, directed at the platform beneath the seconds, caught his full attention.  
  
----------------  
  
Cloud knew exactly what he was doing, and it was working perfectly. Most of the people in the courtyard had evacuated, and the remaining numbers were of a skill high enough not to get immediately destroyed.  
  
But he didn't have much time. He could feel it coming, the planet screaming at high, voices of past and present echoing through the dark and hollow places in his body, his soul throbbing in resonance.   
  
It was coming...and he had come to this place, this time, this waking dream to stop it. After that he could go home, an action that was something like waking from a dream to enter a nightmare, but it could not be helped.   
  
There was very little that /could/ be helped.  
  
He couldn't help staring as the Seconds collapsed under the brunt platform, couldn't help hoping they were alright, couldn't help looking at the mop of a mane of black hair that had not changed throughout the years, Zack was the same then as now...  
  
And he couldn't help looking at the perfect space of darkness that took the Seconds' place.   
  
Tall and imposing, a shade of darkness, unsullied black that made the silver stand out all the more, a perfect portrait of imposing ability and grace. Cloud stared at him, remembering him, remembering everything about him, about them.   
  
Blue eyes met green and the world itself stopped, the impossible gaps in time and space that Cloud had crossed faded away and the world followed them. There was nothing left but the rain, falling around them both in a haze of aqua and emerald.   
  
Cloud was frozen, couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but stare at the man, so wonderfully sane, so marvelously alive - and not his. Had he the ability, he would have laughed, even though he knew he could barely breathe. Here he was, so far from home, mooning over a man that was dead, that was no doubt preparing to beat the living daylights out of him. Shaking himself free of the spell of those eyes, Cloud tightened the grip on the Ultima Weapon, and tried to let the rush of battle prepare him for the man's inevitable assault.   
  
But Sephiroth just stood there, looking at him, as if he was remembering him as well, as impossible as that may be. Cloud wished he would move, wished anyone would move, dispel the tension in the air, the haze of the rain and the pressure of Sephiroth's eyes, points of green among the gray.  
  
Cloud got his wish, although not quite how he might have wanted it.  
  
The courtyard began to shake, the reverberations breaking the tension, scattering it to the winds. The rush of adrenaline did come now, but it came from the anticipation, not the battle. He knew what was coming, and at all costs the past had to be preserved. Failure was not an option.   
  
It came, as he knew it would. A fury of hatred and darkness, a sickening demon burst from the planet it had tainted with its presence, from the Lifestream it had used to traverse the gaps that Cloud had crossed. A vision that darkened the sky and the souls of those who saw it.   
  
Cloud knew this demon, knew it just as he knew that Sephiroth and Zack were n longer concerned with him. Its voice, her name, cascaded around his mind, a sinuous chant, the promises and voices coming back full force.  
  
Jenova.  
  
The Calamity from the Skies, she who he must destroy.   
  
//And she just had to be so god damned large, didn't she?//  
  
Sighing, Cloud readied the Ultima Weapon, and wished for the days when hearing voices just meant that you had gone insane.  
  
-----------------  
  
Author's Notes -  
  
1. Ugh...I'm really not sure what this'll become. If it sucks, it will be suitably killed in infancy to be replaced by an updated version. If it really sucks just all go and read A Long, Hard Road and leave my pathetic drivel alone.  
  
2. The title. It's Greek. It's weird. It ties in later. If someone else knows what it means, tell me. It does mean something, never fear.  
  
3. At this point, even I'm confused, okay?  
  
4. Gah. Just...Gah.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own, not making any money, you won't get much if you sue me. Nothing actually, so don't bother.  
  
/.../ - italics  
//...// - thoughts  
*...* - mindspeech/telepathy  
- speech (duh)  
----------------- - Scene change, flashback, dreaming (it's a multi-purpose stream of dashes)   
  
Send all questions, comments, etc. to: asprosdracos@hotmail.com  
  
This is eventual shounen-ai, but nothing concrete yet...flames because of pairing will be dealt with...harshly...actually, flame away, it's nice to have something to laugh at. Bigotry is amusing.  
  
  
**Xehorista Tora  
**  
By Asprosdracos  
  
-----------------  
  
Chapter Two  
  
-----------------  
  
I woke up in the dream the day  
To the cold of the static  
Put my cold feet on the floor.  
Forgot about yesterday  
Remembering I'm pretending to be who I'm not anymore.  
A little taste of hypocrisy  
And I'm left in the wake of the mistakes, slow to react  
And even though you're so close to me  
And you're still so distant   
And I can't bring you back.  
  
- With You by Linkin' Park, _Hybrid Theory  
_  
-----------------  
  
On occasion, colors are more than just rays of reflected light. To say the Lifestream was /green/ was to demean everything that is truly stood for. The color defined the Lifestream but something else /created/ it, a forged river flowing with the raw matter of souls.  
  
Created with hope, hatred, despair, joy and love. A parcel of intangible emotions and abstract nouns. A presence that was beyond all that, beyond the color. Just standing at the edge, Zack could feel his soul reaching out, trying to join the call of the multitude.  
  
He shivered, trying to pull his soul in, away from the pull, as impossible as it was for him to do so. He owed the stream of flowing green a lot, and thus he forced himself to stand here, despite the general disturbing nature of the Lifestream.  
  
Besides, he'd be damned if he showed anyone that he was frightened of the unnatural pull of the stream, or perhaps the natural pull, so a part of him so integral that its outward appearance felt foreign. Feelings aside, he had to be here, to reassure the part of him that still didn't believe that this was real.  
  
//I mean, sure, so the Lifestream brings back my soul, but spending Spikey back...there...//  
  
It was, even now, not so much that he did not believe it but that he could not. For all that happened, there were still laws that existed in his mind, laws that did not want to be violated.  
  
The dead coming back - sure, he was living proof of the power of the Lifestream and the power of Shinra science, just like two others-  
  
//No - /one/ other, remember the note to self? The very important note to self that must be remembered at all times? The other one didn't happen, he's not /him/ anymore anyway.//  
  
Zack wouldn't remember him. Couldn't remember him, remember the madness again. It was easier, far preferable to let his mind drift to a happier thought, a more welcome revived person.  
  
She was in the room now, controlling - although she herself preferred communing, to which Zack had replied that as long as she got the spirits to do what they had to she could call it whatever she wanted - the Lifestream.  
  
Pink was a surprising contrast to the green, but it defined her, the color shaping and understating her attributes. To Zack it seemed like their he could not picture her in anything else. True, logic demanded that she must have other clothing that she wore, the continuity of the SOLDIER garb was one thing, easily explained away with the multitude of identical uniforms, but how many articles of clothing, how many dresses of that exact shade and make could one person have?   
  
No, logic asserted that the pink dress, the red vest were only the most recognizable articles of Aeris's clothing, and the others had faded away to dusky memory, not suiting her or not suiting the image that Zack held in his mind of her.   
  
In more ways than one, logic was inferior to memory.  
  
Her dress swung around her, the lower sections ruffling in the soul wind, gusts borne out on the ether in the air, emanations of the Lifestream. The rippling river of brown hair, as vibrant now as it was when he remembered her, the long braid a part of her too, as integral as the dress, the vest.  
  
//The vest...I wonder, if when Spikey says she died, it was redder then...if blood would...//  
  
Watching Aeris, being around her, so full of life, rebounding back from the realms of the green death better than any of them, taking it in stride and immediately finding a position in the effort, in the war.   
  
Seeing her now, the green sweeping over her in wisps, tasting but not taking her living soul, it was hard to imagine that blood and steel would have dared to mar that red, that pink.  
  
  
  
Even a first class SOLDIER can be startled, and Aeris had the most uncanny of habits to sneak up on people. Of all of the group only Vincent had yet to be caught unawares by the revived Ancient, and the day that Vincent was caught unawares by anyone was the day that Zack himself officially declared the world over and all rules of logic suspended.   
  
Zack faith in logic may be failing, but to believe that someone could sneak up on that ex-turk - he wouldn't buy that.   
  
He supposed, however, that he could celebrate such an event - should it occur - by going through an entire day without calling Cloud any of his nicknames like Spike, Spikey, Kid or any of the other assorted list.   
  
He sighed then, having completely forgotten the presence of the Ancient as soon as the topic strayed to Vincent and the end of all existence, which in his mind were fairly weighty matters, and well worth forgetting the presence of Aeris over.  
  
Aeris Gainsborough did not like being ignored. However, Aeris also was, all things considered, one of the more easy going people to grace the surface of the Planet, so it was no fault of hers that the Princess Guard managed to slip out of her expert grasp and land rather heavily on Zack's foot, resulting in the subsequent return to reality of one dark-maned SOLDIER.  
  
Aeris! Did you have to do that?  
  
A small smile, the closest the Ancient ever got to a smirk. Zack, you're thinking too much again.  
  
I'm thinking too much so you hit me in the foot?!  
  
A laugh now, a compliment to the smile. Some part of Zack rejoiced, it was so good to see her laugh, just to see her. There had been a time, years ago, when he would have given anything to see her smile.  
  
It was the only way to get your attention, and besides, it was an accident.  
  
Accident. Sure. You're almost as bad as Spike is at lying to me, you know that?  
  
Would I lie to you? At this, Zack almost burst out laughing, Aeris somewhat exuberant nature misplaced but much appreciated.   
  
And very much missed. He had missed the sounds of laughter, of her laughter, innocent and carefree. A surprising contrast, that anything could be carefree in this world, in this place and this time.   
  
A time where Spike was forced to be something that would drive others insane, forced to do things that would destroy the souls of others.   
  
Sometimes he wondered if it hadn't happened already, if Cloud was nothing more than an actor, going through the motions that he knew everyone expected of him. Sometimes, when Zack was alone and no one could pull him out of the dark shadows of wondering, he worried that Cloud's soul was drifting somewhere ripped and crushed by the weight of the impossible burden he carried.  
  
You're worrying about him, aren't you Zack?  
  
His laughter had stopped and it was obvious enough for Aeris to tell that he wasn't taking part in the jovial interlude anymore.  
  
Stop it. The power of the memory holds. The collective will and mind will keep him there, long enough.  
  
How? How do you know it's long enough?  
  
//It might not be, not be long enough, or short enough, to keep him...them...God I don't want Spike to come back to this place after seeing /him/ whole...//  
  
It had been his worry from the beginning, that after seeing Sephiroth there, in that time, Cloud wouldn't be able to handle coming back to the Sephiroth that existed in this time, to the memory or the actuality of him.  
  
Everything had changed, and yet everything had remained exactly the same. He couldn't stand it, he didn't know how Cloud could, when he had lost so much and was still expected to do so much more.  
  
Stop it.  
  
Aeris's arms wrapped around Zack then, one hand reaching up to the mass of black hair, the Princess Guard still held loosely in the other.  
  
Just stop it Zack. He'll be fine. He's stronger that way than you think...and he needs this. The Lifestream knows what it's doing.  
  
A pause then, as the Princess Guard rose slightly to tap the back of Zack's head.  
  
And if you don't stop worrying, it won't be an accident this time.  
  
A laugh then, more forced now then before.  
  
Yes Ma'am.  
  
-------------  
  
Zack almost retched at the overbearing wrongness of the creature that rose out of the earth, cracking and breaking the concrete of the courtyard. In the hazy mist of the rain, it appeared to acquire a harshness that set it apart from the world of blurred edges.   
  
Like reality, or perhaps just the harsh edge of a sword...Zack couldn't decide which. Everything about the beast appeared one moment impressed forever upon his memory and the next instant only a waking dream.  
  
It was something he knew he would remember, just as it was something he knew he was already trying to forget.  
  
There was no distinction, but the horrifying wrongness permeated both the reality and the illusion as he backed up away from the beast, finding himself with Sephiroth and the blond stranger, their battle forgotten.  
  
More than willing to divert his attention from the demon before them, he glanced over at the two men. Sephiroth shook his head slightly, as if the presence had unnerved him as well, but he appeared as baffled by the monster as Zack. But the man...  
  
...the man had such eyes, filled with such hate, a terrible recognition and a cascade of other emotions too many, a multitude to great to recognize the individual feelings, but all centered on the beast and at the same time on himself. He moved his head slightly, and brought one hand up to his temple in a movement that had the sadness and fluidity of something done too many times before.   
  
That won't work. Not this time.  
  
Zack almost jumped at the sound of the man's voice, so soft spoken for someone who had barged into the courtyard and almost decimated a troop of Seconds.  
  
//Decimated...except that he fought to take down, and none of them were even seriously injured, let alone dead...//  
  
  
  
The man's voice again, the name he said carrying with it a great power and connection in the things /unsaid/ within it, the spaces between the lines.   
  
Don't listen to her. The voices...rarely tell the truth. If ever. And you don't want what they're promising.  
  
Neither of the two men had time to react to that, as he had drawn his sword and was moving forward with the slow gait of the future, the pace of time. Sephiroth stared after him, his head bowed slightly, the sliver hair hiding him from view, hiding the puzzlement in his eyes - not because the words of the stranger hadn't made sense, but because they had.   
  
Everything the man said made perfect sense, matched up with the unknown rise of clamorous voices inside his skull on the monster's arrival. Voices promising power and love and everything he could ever want.  
  
He mistrusted them if only because of everything that they were promising. Everything for nothing wasn't something that occurred, and the conditions of the deal were as of now unspecified.   
  
Still, it was as strange as everything else that had happened so far that the man knew of the voices.  
  
Voices crying out his mother's name.  
  
-------------  
  
There was always something about Jenova that compelled Cloud.  
  
It appeared to him that he was drawn to her, perhaps because of the large number of her cells that he contained. He knew that it wasn't just him, that all of those who shared her soul were connected in some way - it was how Aeris thought Jenova was able to come back to the memory of the past, or perhaps the past itself - and it was only logical that he would be pulled as well.  
  
It was almost fate, brought together over distance immeasurable to this time and place that no longer existed.   
  
At the moment; however, there were two certainties that Cloud knew.  
  
The first was that he really hated fate.   
  
The second was that this was, by far, the ugliest form of Jenova that he had ever seen.  
  
It was had to focus on her, so different, a sharpness apart, only details remembered, the general picture lost the moment Cloud took his eyes off of her. Perhaps it was that hazy memory that made her more revolting - the lack of a clear image in the mind, the lack of reassurance, imagination constructing what memory immediately forgot.  
  
There was the darkness of her, the misshapen hole where the rain should have been, the oversized arms, the glint of dull light off of sharp organics, a riot of blades from the mangling void, lining the arms and the mess of long, looping limbs that created the lower body.   
  
Jenova did not move but she surged, the mass quivering as each supported a fraction of her weight, ready to take the burden of its brothers should they need to rise and strike at any foolish enough to attack. Any insane enough to attack such an imposing beast.  
  
Cloud sighed then as that thought made its way into his head.   
  
//It's so hard to be the insane one.//  
  
And as the beast surged forward, the courtyard just big enough to fight in, and there was no time to think, to speak, only to hope that Zack and the others had gotten out of the way in time, to hope that no one would interfere in what could only be his fight.   
  
And then, there was no time to hope as Jenova was upon him.  
  
Swung himself to the side, not expecting the swift outpouring rush of tentacles and blades and things he cared not to think about. Avoided them, letting instinct take over, the feel of wrongness displacing air and rain alerting him to where the next strike of wrong would occur, allowing him to flip away from it, away from danger, away.   
  
It was a dance, an aerial ballet. All the potency and power was there, amazing in the execution and the hindrance of the sword not being a hindrance at all to the man. Cloud knew what it must appear to the others, the almost otherworldly sense that guided him out of the reach of the twisting blades and failing mass of Jenova.   
  
It was almost unconscious, the twist there, turn here, righting himself to bring the Ultima Weapon out of its sheath in time to destroy several flailing limbs that he knew he wouldn't be able to dodge. He landed softly, the beast before him howling slightly in pain, the constant burden of the sword acknowledged and ignored.   
  
Give it up.  
  
It was always surprising to Cloud how he could make himself heard when he wanted to be, without raising his voice at all. He had never understood how menace carried along currents of sweat and fear until he had experienced both sides of it.  
  
It was far different, to be the tormentor instead of the tormented, the hunter instead of the prey, to rip something apart without feeling himself shatter.  
  
Do you really think you have a chance?  
  
Words, useless words. Cloud had never really placed much stock in words, never held faith in something he had never been good at. Sometimes, though, they had their purposes.  
  
Especially in cases when they happened to be the truth.  
  
It had been years since what he had thought to be the final confrontation with Jenova in the crater, but time hadn't blurred the memory of the fight. He had defeated her then, admittedly with the help of Nanaki and Tifa, and from what he could tell this version was nothing in comparison to the one of the past.  
  
You don't belong here. You don't have a chance of accomplishing what you want here. You never did.  
  
For the first time since the beast's appearance Cloud felt something more than just her presence in his mind. The anger was hot and thick, pulsating in his mind. This incarnation couldn't speak through the link - or perhaps simply chose not to - but the raw hatred filling his head was more than enough.  
  
A great deal of that anger, he suspected, came from the shared knowledge that he was right. Jenova knew, as he did, that she didn't have a chance; that he was just too strong for her to hope to win against.   
  
//But she had to know this...//  
  
An unanswerable question, how a beast that was in his head could not know that he was fully capable of beating her. He knew that Jenova hated that, not being able to defeat him, one of her creations, Hojo's creations. He knew she hated having one of her progeny posses full liberty, independence from the womb.   
  
Even though this was the past, Jenova was still from his time, and nothing would have changed. Even if she truly was from the past, Cloud couldn't imagine Jenova ever being different from the sinuous threats and promises in his head, an unchanging voice.   
  
No different, even though this was the past.   
  
//It's the past...by the planet, it's the past...//  
  
An obvious statement with weighty implications. He had avoided revealing himself until now to avoid recognition. To avoid changing the past, causing a change he couldn't possibly predict.   
  
He hadn't realized, until now, that Jenova would have no such restrictions.   
  
Jenova's attack surged forward once again, and Cloud moved to intercept and stop what he had just realized would occur.  
  
-------------  
  
Cloud knew that if Zack knew he was here he'd be in more trouble with the black-haired SOLDIER than he had ever been.   
  
Most of said trouble would stem from the fact that Zack would invariably tell Sephiroth, and when Seph found out that he was placing himself in this type of danger he'd never hear the end of it from the silver-haired Commander.  
  
All the same, Cloud had to be here.  
  
There was something that drew him to the man who had shown up, out of nowhere, out of the rain. A feeling, a connection, a tenuous almost longing.   
  
He had to be here, to figure that out. He didn't understand it, and for the most part he understood his emotions. Oh, to be sure they were complex, but in the normal way of adolescence. Everything that appeared so tangled and conflicting Zack had always been able to figure out for him. That was, perhaps, what set this apart. It wasn't something he felt Zack would understand; it was a lonely feeling in that sense, it's solitude stemming from his incomprehension of it.  
  
Cloud, his head full of thoughts that did not concern the terrain whatsoever, stumbled on a piece of torn up concrete and almost tripped. The battle between the blond man and the...the...thing in the courtyard had torn up the surrounding area pretty badly, and the footing was precarious. He winced at the sound the shifting rubble made and hoped that no one - or no thing - had heard it.   
  
Having either the humans or the beast detect him was not something he wanted to happen.   
  
//Okay Strife, time to use being a runt to your benefit!//  
  
With that thought in mind, Cloud cautiously placed his weight and got down on his knees, shrouding most of himself behind the accumulated debris. He had a clear view of the courtyard from here, and although the rain muffled any sound that might have come, he could still marvel at the skill of the blond man, the power with which he wielded that massive blade. The sword was something in of itself incredible, a blade of equal size to Zack's Buster sword.   
  
The strength that the man must have, to be able to use that blade, the power...Cloud wished that he could be that strong, instead of the second-rate trainee he knew he was now.   
  
The man had stopped, but Cloud couldn't hear the words between them, could only see the tense stillness between the beast and the man. And for one frozen moment the rain stopped and hung in place, a moment broken as the beast lunged at him.   
  
Cloud didn't have time to think or react, couldn't think or react, the useless drills taught to create battle reflexes, automatic combat reactions failing him then as he saw death approaching, a sharp blade attached to a whip like appendage.  
  
Watching the light shimmer off the point of the blade, Cloud wondered if it would hurt much, if it would hurt to feel it pierce his body, his heart, if it would hurt to be pinned by that blade, dying.  
  
He prepared for that pain, waiting for the moment as the stranger leapt between the two of them, his sword deflecting the organic weapon, the blade glancing off his sword to nick his shoulder, a dark stain immediately growing in the cloth around the cut.  
  
Are you all right?  
  
Cloud started at that - surely he should be asking that question - but the stranger held his gaze evenly, his wound disregarded.  
  
Get behind me.  
  
Cloud scrambled to obey, he'd only heard such authority from Sephiroth before, and it left no room for debate. The man raised his sword and placed it and himself between him and the beast.   
  
  
  
Cloud cringed to hear the hesitant sound of his own voice, aware of how weak it must have sounded to the blond man.  
  
I'm going to charge Je-the monster. When I do, I want you to run over to Sephiroth and Zack and stay with them, understand?   
  
The man's voice was low, barely reaching his own ears. Yes, sir.  
  
Good. Go now. Now!  
  
Cloud cringed at the command in the imperative, but dashed over to where he could see Seph and Zack, worry etched in both of their faces. Stumbling and running, trying to get as much speed as possible, Cloud could still see the blur of the other man out of the corner of his eye as he attacked the monster, his sword splintering the air with fragments of reflected light.   
  
And then he was there, safe in the heavy comfort of Seph's hands on his shoulders, Zack's voice asking over and over again if he was alright, if he was dropped on his head as a child to do something so stupid...  
  
Cloud didn't hear them. He continued to look at the man, fighting, flying through the air as if both he and the sword were weightless. It was poetry in a pure form, beauty in the lines of battle, the not quite crimson arcs of blood from the monster, the flashes of light from the many blades and the sword.   
  
And a glow, growing steadily more intense, radiating out from the sword in green waves. Cloud didn't recognize it, but from the way that Sephiroth's hand tightened on his shoulder, he knew that the older man did.   
  
Cloud didn't understand the destructive connotations of the glow, only understood the beauty as it encompassed the man and the monster, solidifying as the man landed solidly and sheathed his sword. Bringing his hands together, he shouted out a word that Cloud did not hear or understand, and all the world was engulfed in green and white.  
  
------------  
  
The glow from the Ultima spell did not fade.   
  
Sephiroth had felt Zack put up shields to deflect the blow that they both knew was coming. It helped in keeping out debris and assorted liquids that would have been fairly hard to get out of a uniform. The damage from the spell had been fairly concentrated on the monster, and it showed din the result.  
  
There was not anything left to speak of, only a man stained in colors that blood normally did not come in, chest rising and falling at a rate slightly faster than normal. He stood on top of something that, had Sephiroth not seen the battle, he would have assumed was a dragon that had the Gelnika crash land on it. As used to the gore of battle as he was, Sephiroth still tried to not let his mind linger on what exactly /that/ used to be.  
  
And still, the glow from the Ultima spell did not fade.   
  
Cloud, stay here. Zack, with me. Let's introduce ourselves. Don't draw your weapon, but be prepared to.  
  
Zack complied immediately, although he had already been on alert as soon as the stranger began his attack. Cloud, worry evident in his eyes, still had too much of the Shinra regime drilled into him to question his commander.  
  
As they walked up to the man, noises that Sephiroth had /not/ wanted to hear today drifting up from various parts that they were forced to step on, the glow only seemed to increase, the green rising out in concentric emanations from the stranger.  
  
The man had turned to face them, the rain slick hair having escaped the rough ponytail it was gathered in and falling freely down in front of his face, obscuring his eyes.   
  
The glow from his eyes was still immediately apparent.  
  
You're from SOLDIER.  
  
It was not a question.  
  
No, I'm not. There was a sadness to the man's voice, a sense of a tied down longing. He wouldn't meet Sephiroth's eyes, or Zack's.  
  
I'm not...I wasn't in SOLDIER...You should leave. Now.  
  
Sephiroth did not take orders from people well, even though this man had proven himself in battle and saved Cloud.  
  
We're not going anywhere until you tell us who you are and why you were in SOLDIER but weren't.  
  
The reply was quicker this time, a note of urgency easily read in it.  
  
There isn't a lot of time, you should just go, now, before...Damn it! Just go or I'll make you!  
  
Both Sephiroth and Zack started at that, the action seemed immediately out of character for the man, an action of desperation, something he would not normally do.  
  
Any reply Sephiroth might have had to the last remark was cut off as the glow from the Ultima spell rose past the knee level it was previously at. The green rose out of the earth, surrounded them in the color.  
  
Too late, Sephiroth realized that this couldn't possibly be a residual effect of an Ultima. The glow had already surrounded the three of them, a clogging force that clung and hurt but at the same time was a normal as the mako he could remember faintly along the edges of things he tried to forget.  
  
The reference to mako brought with it an onslaught of memories that normally struck the Commander in his quieter moments, when there was no one around to be hurt by the hatred they created. Now it didn't matter, as he couldn't move in the mist anyway.  
  
He couldn't move or attack it as it surrounded him, invaded him. He couldn't do anything as it accepted him and he welcomed the oncoming darkness as an escape from his own weakness and his own memories.  
  
-----------------  
  
Author's Notes  
  
-----------------  
  
1. I hope the time travel/collective memory/thingy/major plot device makes more sense now.  
  
2. As an aside, the amount of free time I have is so nonexistent it's pathetic. I try to write when I can, although this will get done, probably because I'm having too much fun with it, and one of my friends who reads this told me that if I cease to write, I will cease to live. O.o  
  
3. I suppose I could title this In which Cloud kicks ass and takes names and Seph and Zack ogle without doing anything of importance. Oh well, I thinks it's a big enough shock effect if some random guy beats up some random monster and some random voices start yelling in Seph's head.  
  
4. As another aside, Aeris came out spunky because I always thought she was a quietly spunky kind of character. And her and Zack are just fun together.  
  



	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own, not making any money, you won't get much if you sue me. Nothing actually, so don't bother.  
  
/.../ - italics //...// - thoughts *...* - mindspeech/telepathy "..." - speech (duh) ----------------- - Scene change, flashback, dreaming (it's a multi- purpose stream of dashes)  
  
Xehorista Tora  
  
By Asprosdracos  
  
------------------  
  
"Under the stars each night, I wonder if stairs go there. And under the stars tonight I wonder if someone cares. I'm lonely that's the way I feel I can't feel no stairs.I'm only just a man of steel"  
  
  
  
- "Man of Steel" Frank Black  
  
------------------  
  
The tide had gone out.  
  
As the green waters faded, their swirling miasma inducing faint feelings of nausea even at this distance, Sephiroth turned to examine the reality that was now creating itself before him. It was a harsh reality, a world of sharp edged steel and glinting glass and metal.  
  
It was a place he had been before.  
  
He remembered this place, not fondly of course, but he remembered it nevertheless. It would be impossible to forget this, the block out the memory of soft edges and sharp glares.  
  
Of emotionless eyes and cold fingers, no gloves. Never any gloves. Instead the hands burned white, only the faintest pink tinge to them. As a child, the pale color had always reminded him of his own skin and hair, and he hated those hands for the association they created in his mind.  
  
He hated them for other things too. In fact, it was only when he was nine or ten that he had linked what the hands did, what the hands held and injected, to the person behind them. Before that, they had just been hands, hands that never stayed still and had the nervous habit of linking together in front of the whiteness.  
  
Perhaps thinking of him had invoked him into the reality. Still, Sephiroth tensed as the white coated figure appeared, the greasy hair shining under the lights, the hands reflecting it off of pale, washed skin. Decaying hands with long, tapered fingers. They moved to link together in front of the lab coat, the small movement causing the light to scatter.  
  
That was an interesting point. Sephiroth remembered seeing the room create itself as the green faded away, but he couldn't remember the lights showing up.  
  
Nevertheless, there were lights, blinding and brilliant shades of white, the white of the lab coat, the white flare as the Professor's eyes began to move rapidly from one side to the other, and the faint white gleam of the scalpel, suddenly very close. As close as if he were right next to it, strapped down onto that table, a young boy again, defenseless, weak and afraid.  
  
Seeing that scalpel descend in a time that was not now and a place that was not here, Sephiroth felt memory and awareness rush to him, and he woke up to meet a glare of light.  
  
This light lacked the harsh ethereal quality of the previous one. Instead it was soft and natural. The sounds that filtered through were sparse - faint footfalls, the hum of electronics somewhere, and the small movements across the cold tile that translated themselves as sound.  
  
//Cold tile? //  
  
There was coldness in the lab, the coldness of the floor, and the table and restrainers and for one frozen second the world hung still and Sephiroth thought he was there again.  
  
But there were people shouting; frantic, panicky voices that collided with each other constructively in the air, amplifying themselves. He had yet to move, and his ear could pick up the sensations of many hurried footfalls as people ran from place to place.  
  
Hojo never allowed chaos like this in his lab. He scoffed at chaos, and was quick to fire many an intern who encouraged it. This, then, could not be his lab, and that was perhaps the first reassuring thought that came to Sephiroth since the start of this whole endeavor with the blond man and Zack.  
  
Speaking of which, where was the SOLDIER? Zack had been with him, and wherever here was, it seemed to Sephiroth a fairly safe assumption that Zack was here too, as well as the blond haired man.  
  
With that to drive him, Sephiroth slowly began to rise to his knees, using his left hand to support his weight until he could get his legs under him. Groggily, trying to orient himself despite the spinning sensation in his head that was only beginning to die down, his body protesting the change in posture and rise to the vertical, Sephiroth glanced about him.  
  
It was a room that managed to look vaguely familiar and unlike anyplace he'd ever been, both at the same time. Sephiroth decided then and there that a half-realized feeling of deja-vu was decidedly uncomfortable and downright irritating.  
  
It was populated with tile, harsh squares of black, white and the off green color that managed to come close to looking like something he'd dug out of Zack's locker once to embarrass him in front of the new group of cadets. Although in the end, Zack had gotten him back for that little stunt, and rather spectacularly so too, if he remembered correctly.-  
  
The clicking sound of a gun safety released sounded throughout the room, echoing as it was repeated multiple times by the soldiers that were no doubt surrounding them. Sephiroth didn't have to lift his gaze from the tiles to realize that they were trained on him, the tense feeling in the air betraying the willingness of those present to shoot more than anything else.  
  
Sound behind him, someone rising to his feet. There was no movement from the multiple personnel around him, their guns still trained on him.  
  
//So.not a threat.the blond man? //  
  
"Sir?"  
  
For one frozen instant, he could almost think that they were addressing him, the careful respect and reservation so apparent in the tone, a tone he had heard so many times before, usually accompanied by a nervous hitch in the voices of new recruits, a shuffling of feet, a shifting of eyes.  
  
It was strange beyond strange, watching a moment that he knew had happened before, just like this. Except he would not have been on the ground, on the cold tile, instead he would have been the one answering with authority that came with breathing, innate as living, as thinking -  
  
"It's alright. At ease."  
  
Discord now, the lack of harshness he would have expected from someone who commanded that much influence, that much power.  
  
".Sir??" The questioning tone in the soldier's voice hang in the air, uneasy in a place it clearly didn't belong, doubting an absolute, doubting his absolute.  
  
"I know, soldier. It's.not him. Neither of them. Just place them under security lock."  
  
//Not him? Who is /him/? Which one of us did that refer to? //  
  
"Yes Sir!"  
  
Disoriented as Sephiroth was, the part of the conversation that involved being placed under security lock didn't register until the soldiers had already approached him, their guns trained to guide them both to the cells.  
  
-----------  
  
Cloud wasn't surprised that Zack approached him as soon as he left the room. Worry radiated from the cautious stance of the man and the tense muscles in his hands and face.  
  
"Spike?" One word that was less a question than an invitation, a polite way to ask if he was alright.  
  
"It's okay Zack. Really, I'm fine."  
  
"Spike.do you really think you're fooling anyone? Especially me, of all people. I think I'm going to go be insulted now."  
  
"Zack, I'm sorry." Cloud could do this, this was normal, expected, the usual business. Respond to Zack's banter, trying to hide how much he felt like collapsing where he stood.  
  
"For what? Cloud.anyone would.I mean.argh.First things first, I guess. The bitch's status?"  
  
"Jenova's dead. She wasn't expecting me to come after her." The tone that Cloud assumed was automatic, as was the hand that came up to rake through his bangs.  
  
//There was so much though.so much I wasn't expecting. You again, me again.Him.//  
  
If Zack noticed the small shudder, which he most likely did, he chose to avoid comment on it for Cloud's sake.  
  
//Him.again and for the first time. //  
  
Zack turned then, gaze and attention directed inward, to the problem at hand.  
  
"We can't keep them both under lock and key for the entire war, Spike. I mean, even if word didn't get out to the higher powers, and even if that didn't set off a panic that I don't want to see, we can't keep them there."  
  
"I know that, Zack. I know as well as you do that as soon as Reeve finds out about this - or any of the Turks, or Scarlet or God, or anyone - the Planet help us."  
  
Zack didn't reply to that at first staring at Cloud, not wanting to accept how complicated there lives had both become, so much worse than before, when things had been bad enough.  
  
//Never simple.it's never simple, never easy, never anything but real. //  
  
"So there's only one alternative then."  
  
"But we need precautions.I can't.I can't handle two of them, Zack. The forces we have can barely even handle one of them."  
  
"I know, Spike."  
  
He knew. He knew how close that barely was to being not at all, how close everything was to going to hell, and if there was the barest hint that Jenova could create an encore performance that would shatter all their hopes of winning, this entire plan would be impossible.  
  
"So you'll go and speak to them then, while I arrange the precautions."  
  
"Wh-What? Me? But at the moment there's more than one of me. You want me to speak to myself? When did I start taking orders from you, anyway Spike?"  
  
"Since I became right. Besides, they can't deny your existence, while they'll think I'm nuts." And despite the ghost of a smile gracing his features, Cloud wondered how far that would be from the truth.  
  
Zack shrugged one shoulder, flicking one long piece of black hair over to join the rest of the mass. "But, what, I'm supposed to waltz up and explain things? I don't think they'll take that well."  
  
One hand came up to rest in his bangs again. "Zack, you know that they can't say you're not real. Besides, I'll come with Doc and the Turks - Reno and Rude should be even more reassurance."  
  
An unspoken thought hung between them, tainting the air. If it all went to hell, the Turks would be needed to help being them down. Neither wanted to say it, but both accepted it.  
  
"I hate you Spike."  
  
"I know."  
  
-------------------  
  
Years ago, Cloud could remember finding an old map of the Shinra headquarters, could recall tracing his fingers over the stark lines of corridors and rooms, the vulnerable openings of doors and windows - war of a different sort, another kind of army. While the building had been destroyed in Meteor, it had been rebuilt along the same architectural plan, following the same veins of ink and concrete.  
  
And while it was a bit disconcerting that the passageways here mirrored those he had walked so many years ago, under the same flickering fluorescent lights, highlighting everything in sharp contrast, it certainly did make finding people easier.  
  
Although, in truth, the Turks were rarely easy to find. Reno, Rude and Elena were as busy as Cloud and Zack, possessing all the commitment and all the respect of generals without the actual rank.  
  
//They never wanted the rank though.they're Turks and that's enough for them. //  
  
Any other time, Cloud would have been forced to issue a command for the Turks on base to report to him, else spend time he didn't have searching for them. Luck appeared to be with him today, a rare occurrence, for the first few inquiries into the Shinra infrastructure had yielded the fact that the trio was partaking in the required physical.  
  
//So I can go to the Infirmary, grab the Turks and the Doc and go. //  
  
It was killing two birds with one stone, and thus it was luck that rarely graced Cloud with its presence. It was a way to save a lot of time and effort and.  
  
.it meant going to the Infirmary ward. The large double doors were approaching him swiftly as he strode down the corridor and Cloud tried to suppress the shivers of long ago terror creeping up his spine.  
  
//Well, fuck. //  
  
It was an infirmary much like any other, save for the grander scale of it. The rooms were bathed in the fluorescent light, ones that did not flicker, lights never flickered in labs, only beat down on you constantly. Pristine tile reflected the light back, so everything in the room appeared to glow. The syringes glistened in the double light, the scalpels glinting, and the tubes of blood ready to be analyzed seeming to glow from within.  
  
Cloud wondered whenever he went into these rooms if one could be selectively claustrophobic, for it was only here that the walls appeared to press in on him, only here where his breath came short and harried when he let it. When he heard the hard sound of footsteps behind him, it took all his self-control not to whip around and attack.  
  
"General Strife, to what do I owe this honor? I would have thought that the only way to get you in here was stoically kicking and screaming."  
  
The voice belonged to the one person Cloud didn't mind meeting in an infirmary ward and turning, Cloud caught the eye of the doctor and addressed her softly, his apprehension gradually disappearing at her presence.  
  
"You can stoically kick and scream, Doc?"  
  
Doc tilted her head up at him, regarding him behind the frames of her glasses. She tapped a pen softly against her mouth contemplating his question, before returning it to the pocket of her rather colorful lab coat.  
  
"I'm sure you'll find a way, General Strife."  
  
Doc's real name and title was Doctor Tabitha, but no one ever called her that. A diminutive woman, several inches short of five feet, Doc could pick at man apart with words just as well as with a scalpel. She had risen through the medical ranks on pure skill and her blunt nature. Once at the top, she immediately had the entire medical department restructured. Many had come to fear the short woman in the brightly colored lab coat and pulled up hair.  
  
Cloud was not one of them. The woman was as unlike Hojo as it was humanly possible for anyone to be. He coat was not only brightly colored in all shades, a tie-dye construction that was almost painful to look at, but it was also several sizes too large, the extra fabric gathering at her small hands and the coat reaching down far more than most lab coats did. She was a person of loud chaos, and proud of it.  
  
"You never answered my first question, General Strife."  
  
Remembering the question itself took Cloud several seconds. I need you and the Turks - who I hope are still here - to come with me to the Cell blocks."  
  
"May I ask why?"  
  
Cloud grimaced inwardly. //Sure you can, but I'd been hoping that you wouldn't.//  
  
"I have two prisoners I need you to examine. The Turks' presence is required for credibility."  
  
An arched eyebrow greeted his last statement. "Credibility? What kind of person would not take you at face value, General?"  
  
Cloud couldn't help the thoughts that leapt to his mind then, and he devoutly hoped that none of them showed on his face. "Unique prisoners, Doc. I'll just have to trust your sense of curiosity to lead you on."  
  
At that Tabitha broke into an open smile. "Unique prisoners.If you give your troops as much information as you give me, one wonders that you lead any sort of army at all. Well, I suppose that's neither here nor there. You said you wanted the Turks, General?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Tabitha brought her hand up to casually tuck shoulder length black hair behind one ear. "Well then, I suppose I'll go get them. Wait here, General, I'd ask you to follow, but that would mean venturing further into the ward, and it has been known to eat people on occasion." She turned away from Cloud, and moved swiftly away, pushing aside a screen and disappearing behind it.  
  
-------------  
  
Faced with the harsh reality of that cell door and the knowledge of who was behind it, Zack cursed many things. His life, job, Cloud, Sephiroth, the other him, and the lifestream were just a few of the topics. One would notice however, that most of the mental flaying gravitated toward Cloud and the other were left more or less untouched.  
  
//I'm going to hurt you Spike.oh, come on, Zack, staring at it isn't going to make it go away. // Moving slowly, with the dejected gait of one who hopes that if he takes enough time to get there it will go away, Zack accessed the code for the cell and opened it. Inside, he heard the soft sounds of someone - two someones - getting hurriedly to their feet. Zack stepped inside.  
  
If it had been any other time, in any other situation, it would have been funny. He remembered what Sephiroth was like was like back in SOLDIER, in the days before everything changed, and he'd never seen him drop his jaw in shock before. The other Zack - Zack was already delineating him in his mind as Zackery - had staggered back against the wall in shock. Zack didn't give them time to do anything, and launched into speech.  
  
"Look, I know right now you probably don't have any idea what's going on, and you're probably thinking that I'm evil or a clone or one of Hojo's pet projects that he works on when the lab rats revolt. If I was in your situation, and in a way I suppose I /am/ in your situation, I'd think the same thing. But I swear to you I'm no one else but Zack, and that's all there is." Zack paused, considering, then added: "And if you don't believe me, there are so many stories I can tell about the things I -you- used to do. I'll tell you the one's about Seph, but there aren't all that many, are there?"  
  
Zackery shifted his weight off the wall and raised his hand like he was in class. "How.how can you be Zack? I'm Zack, and last time I checked, there was only one of me."  
  
Zack folded his arms over his chest, composing words in his mind. "Let me tell you a few things about how you got here. A man that you didn't recognize came out of nowhere and beat the crap out of a whole lot of your SOLDIERS without trying all that hard, and by using a weapon similar to a buster sword, right?"  
  
At Zackery's nod and Sephiroth's level gaze Zack continued.  
  
"And after he'd done that, a giant monster thing that looked as ugly as all hell came out of the ground and attacked people. One of the people in attacked was Cloud, I bet. The SOLDIER who wasn't commenced with the ass kicking of said monster, and after that you and you and him got sucked up by a lot of green light, right?"  
  
Sephiroth had avoided looking at Zack from the beginning of his speech, but now he locked gazes with him. "And how do you now so much about it? I can tell you that all that's true, although you already knew that, didn't you?"  
  
Closing his eyes briefly, Zack exhaled softly and began speaking again. "I know all this because, well, because, I and.someone else sent the man back to your time. Yes, /time/. Because."  
  
//Damn it Zack, just spit it out already! //  
  
"Because this is the future."  
  
--------------  
  
Author's Notes -  
  
Something about this chapter vaguely irritates me, but I want it out of the way so the fun stuff can begin. Let me assure all of you that Doc Tabitha is in no way, shape or form a self-insert. If I was going to self-insert myself, I'd do it with a character that got more action than sticking needles into people and using sarcastic remarks. Trust me on this one, or ask Ftera - she'll set you straight. Zack gets stuck with all the shit jobs, doesn't he? ^_^ 


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own, not making any money, you won't get much if you sue me. Nothing actually, so don't bother.  
  
/.../ - italics //...// - thoughts *...* - mind speech/telepathy "..." - speech (duh) ----------------- - Scene change, flashback, dreaming (it's a multi- purpose stream of dashes)  
  
-----------------  
  
Xehorista Tora  
  
------------------  
  
"And today is tomorrow, and tomorrow today, and yesterday is weaving in and out."  
  
- Cake, "Comfort Eagle"  
  
------------------  
  
"It's complicated."  
  
That, Sephiroth decided, had to be one of the understatements of the year. The other Zack seemed ill at ease; however, and unlikely to disclose anything more specific unless it was dragged out of him.  
  
"No, really?"  
  
Glancing back, Sephiroth saw that Zackery - his Zack - was leaning against the wall of the cell, glaring at his double. Suspicion and distrust marked his face. Sephiroth wasn't sure if he believed this other, but somehow he didn't think so.  
  
But there was always the possibility: a situation so bizarre that it couldn't be anything but real. This Zackery was indistinguishable from his Zack and yet wasn't. There were little clues, soft movements and shifts of weight that spoke of greater training and hardship. Hardship that came from age.  
  
And his eyes were the same dark, dark gray, but cloudy, as the sky before a storm. Sephiroth did not recognize them.  
  
The other ran his hand through his hair, and the movement, so familiar, resounded through Sephiroth. It was adding up, it was all adding up.  
  
//And where am I? /If/ this /is/ the future and Zack is here, then where am I? Am I still here.did I.?//  
  
Sephiroth refused to finish that thought. There was a logical reason, one that was solid and true and real, and he would find it.  
  
"Things are.different.now..Things have happened.lots of things."  
  
Hesitant, Zack had never been hesitant, never lingered so long in speech, never spoken words with such pain behind them, pain so badly hidden. The feelings in his voice brought both men up short, cut off any reply they might have had.  
  
Zack sighed, a sound far longer and wearier than it should have been.  
  
"Look, there are things I can't fully explain.things.that may not be safe for you to hear.because, well, because I'm afraid of what would happen if you did."  
  
They words came out in a rush and Sephiroth knew that they were directed at him. Opening his mouth to comment, he shut it again when the cell door opened and the blond man entered.  
  
There were other people who entered the cell with the blond man, two Turks, who he immediately realized with more than a little dread, were Rude and Reno, older but still the same - Reno would never dress properly, no matter how old he became. Their being here did nothing but validate the other Zack's explanation. He thought he saw a hint of color and shape, but whoever that was was waiting outside.  
  
Sephiroth remembered the blond at once - the short stance but tall nature, the almost swagger that came from a great deal of authority and responsibility. He wore the same uniform, although a clean one. The uniform itself was a puzzle, like the SOLDIER uniform but altered so only a ghost of the original remained. The blond hair was out of the ponytail now, rising into its natural state.  
  
.of spikes?  
  
Small pieces were fitting together, and he didn't want them to fit. Distantly, somewhere, he knew that if the information that was collecting in his mind coalesced, it would make everything that the other Zack said true, beyond any doubt. This would be the logical situation, this would be real.  
  
And then.then he really would be eons away from home in a harsh reality that might become his own.  
  
But how could he say no to the grace in the way the blond walked, the potential they had always known was there given flesh? How could he deny the blue eyes - so bright, so different but still the same?  
  
He couldn't deny or accept it. Standing there, he could only stare in mute and absolute shock as the blue eyes, burning from mako and harsh memories, watched him with understanding.  
  
"I think Sephiroth's figured it out, Zack." When he wasn't commanding anyone, the man's voice was surprising soft and low, a gentle register somewhere around bass.  
  
Both Zacks stared at the man, but the other, the older Zack with the tired eyes, answered.  
  
"I guess he has. Thought he would."  
  
Reno and Rude, perpetually wary as all Turks, although since it was directed at him, it was all the more pronounced, shifted slightly. Looking over the group, Reno sighed, his manner now as it was then: brash and without care, although not careless.  
  
"Well, it's less to explain, anyway. I don't think you'll need us anymore, now that they know.but we'll be around anyway, in case...well, you know. Just in case of situations that may require our attention."  
  
No one commented on the lack of tact and the man - /Cloud? / - waved to them slightly, a motion of dismissal -  
  
//Dismissal? Because if he's dismissing them and they're listening to him and what has happened here? How has /everything/ changed? //  
  
- and the Turks left, as he /ordered/, an order so simple, so natural to the man that he thought nothing of it. His attention never shifted from Sephiroth.  
  
The Cloud that he remembered was a shadow in a crowd, quiet and timid. It had taken the Cloud he knew months before he opened up to Zack and him. There was none of the Cloud he knew in the strong and silent man before him, and he wondered what could have happened to change the boy from before so much: there was more than the passage of years at work here.  
  
It took something hard and harsh to leave an edge that raw in someone's eyes, and there was one way to find out what it was.  
  
"So you're Cloud." It was not a question, and Zackery jerked his head up to have his own thoughts confirmed.  
  
The man shrugged once, a movement that echoed something Zack often did.  
  
"Yes."  
  
His voice was cold and controlled, without anything that resembled emotion, save those that slunk along the edges of everyone's thoughts and words, the darker feelings no one could completely suppress.  
  
Fear was one. Shame was another. Sephiroth wondered how Cloud could be ashamed of his name. His name was everything that he was, and the Cloud he knew wouldn't be ashamed of it.  
  
And then Sephiroth stopped wondering.  
  
//His eyes glow. So he's a SOLDIER - that can change someone. You're more than a SOLDIER, and look how it changed you. Didn't you hate yourself, sometimes? Didn't you utter your name to yourself in the dark corners of a room when no one would hear? There was more than shame when you spoke it. //  
  
There'd been self-hate and terror in his voice, in those words he'd spoken in the dark, when he was younger, before he learned to hold it in. Before he'd learned to hold everything in.  
  
"So you did get into SOLDIER, after all." At least there was some happiness to be had at that thought.  
  
"No." It was barely audible, a single word that tried its best to slip undetected past everyone's hearing.  
  
"No.I never made it into SOLDIER." The bright eyes closed once, briefly, as if afraid of being accused of lying when telling the truth.  
  
"Then how is what you did possible? How is any of this possible then? If you weren't in SOLDIER, then nothing you did was possible and don't think that we can't see the glow in your eyes, Spi-Cloud." Near hysteria in Zackery's voice, the situation telling on him, one who usually kept his emotions controlled.  
  
Was it a trick of the light, or did Zack move nearer to Cloud as he spoke in response? Sephiroth almost smiled at an act so familiar.  
  
//Protective, even now.//  
  
"There are other ways to receive the.modifications.that a member of the SOLDIER program would have." The words were ground out, like rock crashing onto rock.  
  
"Other ways...?"  
  
"Hojo." Cloud flinched at the name, and Sephiroth barely suppressed one. If that was true, then.  
  
//Hojo always hated them. Always hated Zack and always hated Cloud, although he thought him below his notice. But if he got a hold of either of them.//  
  
If he ever did, the result would be the thing of nightmares.  
  
"How did he manage to do that? I doubt Shinra would authorize it, even considering the idiocy of the upper levels of management as a whole."  
  
"Oh you'd be surprised what idiocy can fail to notice." Zack was calm, but there was something under his voice, a tension that suggested that the memory was anything but. "Especially considering the state of things at that point in time."  
  
The other Zackery, his Zack, pushed himself off from the wall he had been leaning against. " 'The state of things at that point in time?' You'll want to explain that little comment. About now."  
  
"Yeah, Zack, and thank you for being an idiot."  
  
"Anytim - wait a minute, Spike. How am I an idiot? You were going to tell them anyway. You had to."  
  
Cloud sighed again, as if the entire situation was taxing beyond belief. "Yes, but I intended to do it with a bit more tact than a Turk, Zack."  
  
"I am ashamed and affronted that you would compare me to a Turk. I mean, SOLDIER, first class, right here. Where in that package do you see Turk?"  
  
"Zack." Obviously on the verge of attempting to strangle Zack, his name was all that Cloud was able to get out.  
  
"Yes, Spike?"  
  
"Just.nevermind...just forget it."  
  
"You honestly think this is fooling us?" Zackery was staring at them with no small amount of exasperation. "Even if you're not me and all the evidence is false, you're still a damn good fake and /I/ pull this shit far too much to be fooled by it. I think you should stop this and just tell us."  
  
Something dark flitted in and out of Zack's eyes, as all humor disappeared from them as if it had never been. "You don't know what you're asking."  
  
"Yes, I do. I'm asking for the truth without all this bullshit." Zackery gestured slightly with an open hand before running it through his bangs. "I'm asking for you to tell us exactly what happened to put the glow in Cloud's eyes and the pain if the both of yours."  
  
"It's been almost ten years since then. Ten years can do that."  
  
"So can two days, if enough happens. I went through the - /we/ went through the Wutai War, or don't you remember? Have you forgotten what two days can do?"  
  
There were memories there, black and twisted. They were the memories that Zack had woken up to screaming, during the long dark nights in Hojo's keeping. "No. I haven't forgotten that."  
  
"Enough of this." Cloud lifted his head to stare down Sephiroth. "I'll tell you what happened then, if you really want to know." If Zack's small movement was one intended to stop him, he did not pay attention.  
  
"Here's the short edition. You went mad, burned down Nibelheim, and tried to kill the both of us. You failed, and I managed to kill you. Hojo.Hojo took us both 'under his wing' after that."  
  
The words hit Sephiroth with great force, a feeling that lodged in the pit of his stomach. He could call it kin to something he'd felt the first time he'd killed: saw the blood on the Masamune blade and felt that icy denial settle, as slow and irrevocable as the decay of a corpse, into his young body.  
  
That same denial rang through him now: this words, this future, everything that Cloud was telling him - it couldn't be true. He wouldn't have done that, he wouldn't have betrayed the only people who ever truly cared about him - the only people he'd ever truly cared about.  
  
But the memory of the whispers in his mind in the quiet hours of the night called him a liar. The feelings of shame and pain, because he was different and there was nothing good about it.  
  
Being unique, being "special," was a fate worse than anything else he could imagine.  
  
"I wouldn't do that." Self-preservation insisted he say nothing less.  
  
"Would you like to see the scar?" Strife's eyes held his and behind the blue roared the echoes of a distant flame. "I still have mine, although Zack's probably lost his. It doesn't fade, you know, despite everything else. I always wondered if it was a quality of the Masamune, to leave wounds that deep."  
  
At this Sephiroth could summon no answer and slipped free of Strife's cold and clear blue gaze. He'd always admired Cloud's eyes, so clam and soulful, untainted by the dirt and dust Midgar left on someone's soul. He wasn't sure if it was the memories or the mako that lent Strife's eyes their hardness - a beauty still present, but akin to a forged sword in that it could cut with the lightest touch.  
  
Looking at the man before him again, Sephiroth wondered if a rough decade would change the Cloud he knew so much.  
  
"So you hate me then." The words surprised him, for he did not intend for them to come out.  
  
There must have been something terribly interesting on the floor, for Cloud refused to lift his gaze from it.  
  
"Of course not. /You/ haven't done anything."  
  
It had been easy to forget, amidst the shock and semblances of self- loathing, that this was future and the events had not yet transpired.  
  
"You.you're the same person from before.before you changed. You haven't done anything."  
  
And in the slight and stuttering words Sephiroth saw the boy he had known, yesterday and all those years ago.  
  
"I didn't want to tell you at all.but we can hardly keep you two a secret. And the others won't be as.considerate. It's better.that you hear it from us, than from them."  
  
Reading Cloud was like reading a mix of Zack and himself with shadows of the boy he had known. He figured that he could replace "considerate" with "suppressing their undying hatred" and be closer to the truth.  
  
//All those years.and that still hasn't changed. Still that fear, the wary whites of their eyes as they keep you in sight.This time though, you deserve it, don't you?//  
  
Cloud swallowed once, and continued. "After that.Zack and I were taken by Hojo, which is where I got the SOLDIER.enhancements.We broke out, Zack broke us out and he.he died."  
  
----  
  
It's begun to rain.  
  
It happened so quickly, everything coming together and falling apart. Zack had seen them first, although the young man wasn't in much of a position to see anything then. Everything was white noise, and it took the bullet shots and the faint whispers of pain to penetrate that noise.  
  
The blood touched his side as he lay on the ground and the first thought he had was that the ground must be raining too. It seemed unfair that the water hit him from both sides like that, but the young man had long since stopped believing in the fairness of the world.  
  
"Spike."  
  
That name.that name belonged somewhere other than here, to someone else a boy with a shy smile that walked sunlight hallways that are nothing but ashes now.  
  
But the man moans again, and the pain in the voice is impossible to deny. It's something so familiar, and not just the pain, but the voice itself. He knows this voice. He knows he knows this voice, or he did, as well as he knows his own.  
  
//Za.ck..Zack.Zack.//  
  
Strong arms, strong voice, black hair and kind eyes.  
  
//Zackery. Zack. I remember you. Zack. Remember you, Zack. Remember.//  
  
Rain isn't red. So, the liquid touching him can't be rain, and its volume increases as he crawls towards the person.  
  
//Zack? Are you there Zack, I'm scared, I'm so scared, Zack.//  
  
The man is still alive, despite the numerous shot wounds. Still alive, though barely breathing, suffocating in the rain. He looks like he's drowning. Even dying, he clutches a sword; a massive strip of metal that the rain hits and runs down, washing it clean of the same red water that came from the man.  
  
//The Buster sword. And you're bleeding Zack.you're bleeding so much.//  
  
The sword is familiar somehow.it's a weapon that strikes something in his memory, some distant echo. He looks, and sees the city stretched below him, a city with a name: Midgar. A tower, stretching into the sky in the middle of the city.  
  
And below him, on the earth, the man is dying, the water winning the battle as he stops struggling for breath, using his last moment to stare at him, unable to speak. There's emotion in his eyes, so much and so familiar and so sad.  
  
//Zack.no, Zack, don't go, don't go, don't go! Zack. Zack! ZACK!//  
  
Suddenly he felt seized by a strange and terrible grief, something so strong that it made tears spring to his eyes as he raised his hands to the pouring sky and screamed in pure disbelief. There was no logic behind it, no reason behind the ache in his heart and the raw burning in his eyes.  
  
It was raining when it begun, and it's still raining when it ends, the feeling disappearing as if it never had been. He can remember now, some things, not the name of the man before him, although he feels that he should -  
  
//Zackery! Zack, first class SOLDIER, your friend! Remember him! Why won't you remember?!//  
  
But the uniform, the uniform looks familiar, as does the sword. It's the uniform of a first class SOLDIER, and he's wearing the same one. He remembers SOLDIER, remembers training, remembers words of praise.was he good?  
  
He must have been good, to be alive when this person isn't, to survive when others died.  
  
//Zack saved you! Don't forget him, please! //  
  
There's a name that goes with all this, a name that belongs to him and belongs to the clouds in the sky.  
  
"Cloud."  
  
But the city below is calling him, and it's stronger than the call of the sky. Hoisting the sword onto his back, he answers it.  
  
"I am Cloud."  
  
----  
  
"After that.you came back once, with Jenova and still mad and I.defeated you."  
  
Defeated is a peculiar word. The sound of it invokes the memory of old, dusty books that he would read when no one was watching. Enemies rose up in those books, great and terrible, and heroes defeated them, and the masses rejoiced and all was well.  
  
When he was younger, he'd wondered what it would be like to be a hero in those books. He'd never imagined he'd end up being the villain.  
  
----  
  
The Omnislash is a complicated series of movements pulled off in quick succession, to leave the opponent no chance to defend themselves between movements. It requires great strength to manipulate the sword that way, to keep the strikes small enough so that the appropriate speed can be maintained. Without that vital speed, the entire attack would fall apart.  
  
Cloud remembers Zack telling him those words, remembers the way the light shone on the wood of the training hall, polished after so many years and so many careful footsteps. Zack tells him speed is essential, but the movements he makes are slow, and he makes Cloud follow them, his arms trembling slightly with the weight of the practice sword as he holds one long, horizontal strike.  
  
And then Zack performs the movement, swifter than before but still not fast enough, not fast enough for the movements to blur and the sword to leave a glowing trail of blood and silver in its wake.  
  
The memory is bright in his mind, and despite the fact that Cloud knows that the Omnislash is blindingly fast, the strikes echo out into eternity and each moment takes a lifetime.  
  
And he's not holding the strikes out, not supporting the weight like that one time before when everything was so much younger, but his arms tremble all the same. It's not from fatigue, but from the weariness that comes before grief.  
  
The lifestream here looks like the stars in the sky of Nibelheim, where there were no lights and no fire to obscure there glow over the mountains. It's more beautiful than he can find the words to describe, if such words even exist, and it's fitting that it's this beautiful.  
  
It's fitting that Sephiroth die in a place as beautiful as he is.  
  
And he is beautiful, so gorgeous it hurts to look, even with the lines of blood growing against that once perfect skin, every mark a blasphemy, a darkness against Cloud and he knows that after this, he can never go home.  
  
With each strike things are changing and twisting, and when it's over even the stars will have shifted and he won't be able to find his way.  
  
Zack.and Seph.they were guiding points, his own compass, and soon they'll both be gone.  
  
It is over then, so suddenly that Cloud cannot remember when it begun as the cold certainty settles on his mind. The Ultima Weapon is returned to his back, reflex saving him as the blood begins to collect and Sephiroth looks at him, shock widening emerald eyes.  
  
He's not sane, and he's still not himself, but there's the faintest shimmer of what was and even that's still enough to make the tears come.  
  
And the stars are falling into Sephiroth, and Sephiroth's falling into the stars and the lifestream is coming to claim them both. It's so beautiful and despite the fact that now they're both dead now and /everything/ is dead now, Cloud knows he's crying from the beauty of it as much as from the sorrow.  
  
Because he's alone and the memory of someone who was to the last moment so beautiful is as much a burden as a blessing.  
  
----  
  
"There wasn't much, for a few months. Then, Shinra, while researching.something, new methods of power refinement, I think, uncovered something in the Lifestream that was.unnatural. Hojo and Jenova struck soon after."  
  
The next words exist in that realm of voice that is above a whisper but not true speech.  
  
"And they.the scientists at Shinra.they brought both of you back."  
  
----  
  
Cloud had asked to be present when they were revived.  
  
Asked was a polite way of saying he demanded to be present, and even that was a polite way of saying that he nearly threatened bodily harm if he was not allowed to be present.  
  
The lab here was far too much like other labs, in other places that sprang to life when he closed his eyes. He knew that Zack would remember them too, and he didn't want Zack to be afraid. That was the reason he gave them, even though they feared what the reaction from the newly resurrected would be.  
  
And the reason he gave them was true, even if it wasn't all the truth. He wanted to be there because he wanted to see Zack open his eyes. He wanted to see Zack alive.wanted to see them both alive.  
  
After all he had done, for everyone; he thought he deserved at least that.  
  
Even so, it was hard to be in the lab, hard to stand the memories it brought. He had never been happier for Doctor Tabitha's presence and the fact that it was so atypical of Shinra. Her movements - brash and loud by her very presence - were as far removed as Hojo than should be possible.  
  
Not to mention the fact that she was a walking color landmine.  
  
But she was good at what she did; even Hojo wouldn't have been able to deny that. There had been no mistakes or irregularities in what was an extraordinarily difficult procedure to start with, and for that Cloud was glad. It had taken all his courage to know that this was going to occur. He didn't know if he had the strength now for its failure.  
  
They were both there, in the mako; complete, whole. The scientists worked under the somewhat acid direction of Doc -  
  
//She should meet Cid, they'd get along well.//  
  
- as she called them all incompetents incapable of draining two mako tubes without fumbling it. And the scientists, mostly young and skilled, hung off her every word and performed flawlessly.  
  
The guards that he hadn't been able to get rid of raised their weapons as the tubes drained, the figures in them slumping to the floor, coughing to remove the mako in their lungs that Cloud knew burned and choked them.  
  
Stepping forward as the figure on the left raised his head, he met his eyes. Dark gray eyes, cloudy with confusion and pain, clearing as both left.  
  
"Zack."  
  
An incredulous voice answered him. "Spike? Cloud?"  
  
And Cloud smiled at him, motioned the scientists to carry his clothes over to him as he met the eyes of someone who he remembered all to well, a man climbing to his feet and as wary of the lab as of the firearms trained on him.  
  
Eyes that were green and clear and blessedly sane.  
  
"Sephiroth."  
  
----  
  
"For a while, then, things were.well, they were better." Cloud twists his mouth into something that approximates a smile and Sephiroth fills in the pause in his sentence with 'perfect.'  
  
After all, to Cloud, alone for so long, to have the three of them together again, it must have been perfect. Despite the war, despite everything.  
  
"But Jenova wouldn't risk losing, wouldn't even contemplate the possibility. So she waited, until we were out, and closer to where she could strike.and she.she /took/ you."  
  
----  
  
They were high in the mountains when it happened.  
  
It had been a simple objective: destroy Jenova's footholds in the area around Nibelheim. They wouldn't be going near the town, but rather approaching the mountains and the long dormant reactor from the other side, from the base at Rocket Town. It may have seemed longer, but they had needed to clean out that area anyway.  
  
It was strange, how something so simple could go so wrong.  
  
They had broken off from the main army, just the two of them, because Zack could handle the army fine on his own, and it would be easier to get this job done, menial monsters in the caves at the base of Mount Nibel, working alone.  
  
And true to what they'd thought, they'd encountered nothing but minor, mindless nightmares in the caves, and even as they went up in the caves, climbing ever upward, the caves winding up the mountain.  
  
They'd felt secure enough to enter one of the caves fairly high up on the mountain - a little closer to the no longer operational reactor then Cloud would have liked, actually.  
  
The cave was striking, a crystal creation of mako that shone from within scaling the walls. It seemed to hum, to pulse in tune with some distant melody that Cloud could remember hearing once.  
  
//The voice of the planet? //  
  
In a grove it had worn in the floor, startlingly considering how high up they were, ran a stream of what looked like mako but might as well have been lifestream.  
  
They'd forgotten that she could move through lifestream. Cloud never forgave himself for that mental omission, and what came next.  
  
Moving off to examine the crystalline mako on the wall, in the hope, probably in vain, that some of it might be extractable materia, Cloud wasn't watching when the mako stream began to bubble, the smell of rotting sulfur sharp and sudden in the air. It smelled like something dying, like the corpses rotting on the battlefield before they were taken care of.  
  
And turning, Cloud saw the mako stream in its black horror and saw that Sephiroth was too close and knew what she had planned and knew that he wouldn't be able to stop it.  
  
"Seph! Get out of there!"  
  
But he couldn't move quickly enough, as the raw Jenova substance rose up and struck. It was the Jenova in their veins that gave them their speed; how could they hope to compete with the original?  
  
Then the Jenova struck and went into Sephiroth, leaving nothing, no wound, no scar. And Sephiroth screamed once, a sound that Cloud had never heard from him, a sound so despairing and distraught, filled with the knowledge that it was happening again, and he wouldn't be able to stop it.  
  
And then, it was over, and Sephiroth straightened as if he had tripped and caught himself before he fell. Cloud knew that he had fallen.  
  
Sephiroth turned and looked at him and there was nothing in his eyes, no insanity, no flicker of being, nothing. Jenova stared out at him through dull green glass, and he couldn't see Sephiroth anywhere.  
  
She smirked once with Sephiroth's lips, and Cloud shuddered because it could have been him if everything in him wasn't screaming out that this was wrong, wrong, so wrong he couldn't see how anything could ever be all right again.  
  
He looked the same, but his eyes were dull and vacant and he felt like acid, black and viscous, to every sense that Cloud possessed. He felt like poison in the lifestream, streaming to the surface.  
  
Sephiroth kept that smirk as he turned and walked away. Cloud watched him go and felt the world break apart into shards of colored glass.  
  
----  
  
"So, no, you're not dead. You didn't ask but I could tell the question's been on your mind. And I know you have more questions, and we'll try to answer them." Cloud's blue eyes, mako bright and burning, coupled with the shock that Sephiroth felt at the words, bore into his mind.  
  
"But you're not dead. But there's nothing of you in the puppet she controls. It's worse than before, when you were insane but you were /there/. Now.now, if you're in there at all, then it so deep it doesn't matter anymore."  
  
A living puppet, his strings pulled by the lies that lay in tatters around him.  
  
"You're not dead. But maybe.maybe it would be better if you were."  
  
---- Author's Notes ----  
  
For future reference, past Zack is Zackery and future Zack is Zack. Except in dialogue, where they may both be Zack..bah. Just pick a Zack and go with it.  
  
It should be noted that parts of that conversation were about as easy to write as pulling teeth, so excuse the awkwardness. However, Seph does a better whining job then I can, just look.  
  
Seph: One long conversation and then the plot exposition from hell. Real stellar chapter there.  
  
Me: Watch me care.  
  
Seph: But, come on, what were you thinking? Jenova's not going to be evil with style, honestly.  
  
Me: Three words, Seph - Pink Bunny Suit.  
  
Seph: I hate you. 


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: All standard disclaimers apply. Non standard disclaimers only apply every other Friday. And today. The shounen-ai disclaimer is always applicable, all day, every day.  
  
/./ - indicates italics //.// - indicates thoughts *.* - indicates telepathy of any sort, should I ever have the occasion to use it ---- - change of scene, flashback, dream - the multipurpose stream of dashes of choice.  
  
----  
  
Xehorista Tora  
  
Chapter Five  
  
----  
  
If I loose my faith - It would be too late  
  
right back to neverland  
  
It would drag me down - Suck me underground  
  
right back to neverland  
  
You don't understand  
  
I'm down the hole again  
  
- "Neverland" Skold  
  
----  
  
"To be perfectly frank, General, I don't know what to tell you."  
  
Dr. Tabitha stood before the blond with her hands in the pockets of her lab coat and a general haphazard air of one who is too tired to care. She had spent the better part of an hour talking to both Sephiroth and Zackery, and the experience had been a trying one to say the least.  
  
"Admittedly, it's difficult to get information from people when they appear to be under the impression that I'm going to /eat/ them as soon as they turn their back, but I did the best I could."  
  
Cloud didn't quite smile, but as facial expressions went, it was close. "You did pretty well, Doc."  
  
"Oh yes. The suppressed fear followed by the 'come near me with that needle and I will kill you' are the reactions every doctor wants to see in their patients." Tabitha sighed and removed her glasses, holding them in her hand as she collected herself.  
  
"I wasn't able to get much from them, General, but what I can tell you is that they are both perfectly sane, clinically speaking. But - "  
  
"We don't long how long they'll stay that way?" The resignation in Cloud's voice was no more and no less than could be expected.  
  
"Precisely. What we do know is that, in all probability, Sephiroth - the original version, that is - went insane the first time due to Jenova's mental tampering and his own delusions." The glasses were still off, and Tabitha began to fold the arms in and out, a nervous twitch akin to pacing.  
  
"So it was partly his own fault?" It's not difficult to ask a question when you already know the answer.  
  
"Yes and no. I've looked through his files - all the ones left from Meteor, that is. Sephiroth was raised with little resembling family so it makes sense that he would latch on to whatever family was presented to him. From that, Jenova wouldn't have found it difficult to cultivate lies and half-truths that were worse than lies and make Sephiroth do whatever she wanted him to do. With so many of her own cells in him, she had an easy foothold."  
  
Cloud didn't need to reply to that, and he doubted Tabitha expected one. He knew how easy it was from Jenova to gain ground from that foothold. He knew far too well.  
  
"Anyway, the point is that there /was/ a foothold. When we revived General Sephiroth and General Zack, we told them all the information that we did because we hoped that the correct knowledge would eliminate that foothold that Jenova could use against him."  
  
"But it didn't really work..." Cloud trailed off, thinking, remembering.  
  
"But it did work, General. From what you've related to me of..." Cloud stared at the scientist's hands, trying to hear the words that he knew would come, and a vague, detached part of him wondered how long it would take before the arms of her glasses were ripped off from the repetitive motions. "the incident, by all accounts Sephiroth was taken completely over by Jenova - an event that, given the different circumstances, could have as easily happened to you. Before that, he severed himself completely from any of Jenova's ties."  
  
Yes, he /had/ severed himself from Jenova. Cloud could remember, after the shock of having them here again had worn off, and before Sephiroth had changed again. Despite the war, despite Zack's new jabs of "Should I call you Sir Spike now?", despite the constant suspicion of his friends, everything had been like it was, and somehow close to perfect. Everything he could have wanted.  
  
It hurt so much, when it was taken away again.  
  
"So, I think, that if we tell the both of them everything - and I do mean everything - we'll have the same situation as before Jenova took over Sephiroth. I'm not sure whether we're going to try to send them home, or keep them here - that's Aeris's department, after all - but at least we won't have to deal with two psycho boys."  
  
"And if Jenova takes him too?" To see this Sephiroth staring at him with that same expression, eyes flat as glass and nothing alive behind them, to see that again.....he would break, shatter into so many pieces that he'd never be able to piece them all together again.  
  
"Well, there is always that, yes. However, we run the same risk having you go out into the field everyday. Besides, the direct presence of the she-bitch decreased after her seizure of Sephiroth. We can either assume that she doesn't feel the need to interact directly with her representative there, or that controlling Sephiroth takes too much out of her for her to appear in public."  
  
"Thank the planet for small favors," Cloud said, with no small amount of bitterness tainting his voice.  
  
"No, General, thank the planet for the fact that I have an army to keep healthy and a force of imbeciles to watch over, lest they inadvertently kill said army while trying to heal them." Tabitha stopped the constant motion of her hands and slipped the glasses back onto her face, absently tucking her hair back as she stared up at Cloud.  
  
"You complain about those 'imbeciles' all the time Doc. And now you're glad that they're there?"  
  
"Precisely, General. You see, having people look at you as if you are the psychotic doctor himself is hardly a fun filled experience. However, those other pressing duties are calling me away, so I /do/ hope you'll have fun with a friends from the past." With that and a cheery wave over her shoulder, Tabitha walked down the hall, leaving a bemused Cloud in her wake.  
  
"Sometimes Doc, I think I'd be afraid of you if I had any sense left." Cloud let a resigned sigh slip out of his lips as he moved back through the door.  
  
----  
  
"A bit of a shock, I know." The future Zack said it with a wry grin that told Sephiroth he was well aware of how much of an understatement he was making.  
  
"No, you think?" The other Zack - his Zack, and damn if this wasn't going to give him a headache soon - snapped back at him, his natural defense of wry wit coming to the front line. Zack tensed, then launched his own counter, and shaking his head Sephiroth removed himself from the argument.  
  
//He's arguing with /himself./ There are few ways that this can end, and none of them are good.//  
  
Zack was good at arguing, that much Sephiroth knew. He'd always had hell trying to get him to follow orders, because of course Zack /knew/ his way was better, and screw the orders from the high commander. Never disobedient enough to get court-martialed, but always enough transgressions to walk the line.  
  
Still, one would think, against himself, he'd be evenly matched. But the other Zack had years on his Zack, and there was something determined in the set of his shoulders, a perseverance that went beyond what the years should have given him.  
  
//I wonder.what would I look like now? Cloud changed so much, and so has Zack's although it's subtler.but what am I?//  
  
A wry and bitter inner voice intruded.  
  
/What, you mean besides insane? A servant of /evil/? A misguided fool that, from Strife's accounts, killed the two people you actually trust? Can I stop now, or would you like me to keep going?/  
  
He wished he could argue with his common sense, but it had the annoying ability of being right. Even when he didn't want it to be.  
  
The door creaked open, breaking off Zack's argument, and Cloud walked into the room. Clearing his throat, he spoke, short and clipped words searing through the remnants hostility.  
  
"We're going to have to move you all to rooms until we can meet with the others. Which won't be until tomorrow, by all accounts. There's no way to disguise you" he gestured toward Sephiroth, and the white-haired man marveled again at the change in Cloud, the solidity of him now, the presence "but Zack."  
  
"Yeah?" Both of them spoke in tandem, and Cloud winced.  
  
"Not you, Zack, but the other Zack. Zackery. Past Zack...You really need nametags, you know that? Here, put this on. Cover your face." He threw a bundle of cloth at Zackery, who fumbled the catch but managed to hold onto it, unraveling the material into a large, black cloak. He groaned softly, but put it on.  
  
"Black. What, am I possessed by Seph's lack of fashion sense?"  
  
Everyone couldn't help but grin at that, even Cloud who moved toward the door.  
  
"Let's get this over with."  
  
They entered the hallway and began moving, Cloud in the lead, Zack trailing behind, and Zackery attempting not to trip on the dragging hem of the cloak. Almost immediately the man could feel the force of the countless eyes trained on them.  
  
Sephiroth decided that, had he any choice in his future, he would have liked to be a hermit somewhere in the mountains. One of those hermits who lived in a small hut somewhere, and never interacted with people.  
  
Because if there were no people to interact with, it also meant that there were no people to stare at him.  
  
He'd always been in public view, since before he could remember. See the boy, Shinra's golden boy, and watch him move and fight, and watch when we hold him to the light; cold and cruel, untouchable and perfect. A façade like that was not easy to maintain, but it was necessary, and well practiced, and he found himself falling back into the routine now, as the eyes of everyone burned into him, and every soldier's hand moved toward his gun.  
  
If not for the company of Cloud, and the presence he carried with him, Sephiroth was sure he'd have been shot before he could move.  
  
Of course, despite the fact that they were /two/ of them, Sephiroth was sure that Zack would be able to talk his way out of the entire incident, no doubt befriending the head of the enemy camp while doing so. Perhaps he'd even challenge him to a game of cards. Zack had that charisma, and Sephiroth took some comfort in the fact that, with his head forced down and cloaked so none could recognize him, Zack was as uneasy as he.  
  
He could hear the whispers that trailed behind him, words like "Sephiroth" and "Jenova" and "enemy" and "monster" and they hurt because they were true.  
  
Strange, because they said his name the way the fighters of Wutai had said his name, when he had laid the nation at Shinra's feet, and he'd never thought to be ashamed of his name until now.  
  
//This is your company, your /home/, no matter how many years into the future, and they're afraid of you.//  
  
If /they/ were afraid of him, Sephiroth shuddered to think what his reputation must be around the rest of the world. Maybe he could try to prosecute the other him for defamation of name.  
  
//And then Cloud, Zack, Zack and I can all live in Costa de Sol and raise Chocobos. Right. Never knew time travel could make someone so stupid.//  
  
/And since when do you know so much about time travel?/  
  
Sephiroth would have twitched at the dry intrusion of his common sense, but he was fairly sure that he'd be shot if he did.  
  
//...I thought all my inner voices were supposed to be on /my/ side.//  
  
/Sorry. No./  
  
//You really sound to much like Zack for my own good health, you know that?//  
  
He swore his common sense snickered, and he wanted to kill it. Painfully. Preferably with a blunt object, and maybe no one would mind if he were just to go over and start beating his head against the wall?  
  
The sound of quick footsteps brought him out of his reverie, and he tensed, anticipating whoever would approach, until the form became clearly defined, the uniform that of the common soldier. A grunt, in layman's terms. The soldier paused before them quickly catching his breath, and Sephiroth pushed his inner monologue aside, prepared to watch and listen.  
  
----  
  
The trooper that approached them looked to be a private, and terrified out of his mind by his proximity to Cloud. He shifted his weight uncertainly from leg to leg, before clearly his throat hesitantly.  
  
"Umm.Sir?"  
  
Cloud looked at him, not unkindly, and his posture straightened ever so slightly, something almost unnoticeable, except for the fact that this was Sephiroth, and he noticed everything.  
  
"Yes, Private Jonson?"  
  
Nametags were high on the list of very good things. As far as Cloud was concerned, the were seconded only hot showers in the morning and a clean uniform after two months in the mud flats of Wutai, spent fighting giant insects.  
  
Because of nametags, Cloud had managed to realize the names of each of the multitude of troopers. He often forgot them immediately after, but that couldn't really be helped. There were so many of them, and there were always new ones enlisting.  
  
//.to replace the dead. You will lead this boy to his grave, and you won't even remember his name.//  
  
It still hurt, although Cloud has reconciled himself to that inevitable fact long ago. The kept the dog tags and the rankings of the dead, if they could, but there was still that amorphous mass of unknown soldiers, rotten corpses. They burned them when they could, because the bodies never lasted long, especially with the rancid lifestream that would sometimes come up to touch the graveyards of past battles, hoping to steal the energy of a lingering soul.  
  
Cloud didn't know if it was a gift or a curse that Hojo needed to inject Jenova into living specimens before they could be absorbed by the host. He suspected it was a bit of both.  
  
"Sir.I was sent to retrieve the files that you requested. Here they are, Sir." To the trooper's credit, the hand that handed him the thick folder shook only slightly, and the salute that the man, more of a boy really, threw him was nothing short of perfect, if a bit hurried. The boy scrambled away, his regulation boots beating out a quick tempo against the tiles.  
  
"When'd you ask for that, Spike?" Zack looked at him querulously.  
  
"I didn't. Doc must have. She knew I'd need it."  
  
At the mention of a medical personnel, Zackery perked up. "'Doc'? You mean the short woman earlier? The...colorful one?"  
  
Both Cloud and Zack laughed, the sound of Zack's laughter almost drowning out Cloud's more reserved snicker. "Colorful is certainly one way to put it." Cloud said. "She's Doctor Tabitha, head of medical and scientific personnel. We needed to have to look over both of you. You can trust her, by the way. And I wouldn't say that about many people in Shinra, let alone the medics."  
  
Sephiroth was watching him carefully, his green gaze sliding over him, like water over glass. "No, you wouldn't, would you? I doubt you've had good experiences with doctors." He drew the last word out slightly, still testing Cloud.  
  
But Cloud had had years to perfect dealing with references to that time, when the water dripped from the ceiling and the floors, except it was blood, always blood, dripping from his veins and the light flickered on and off, keeping pace with the screams.  
  
//.and it was always cold down there, and always the screams, except when they stopped and you held your breath until you thought you would burst, waiting for the screams to return because it meant Zack was still alive. And you hated yourself for wanting Zack to be in pain, knowing that you'd rather have his pain than being alone.//  
  
Nothing was worse than being alone. Cloud had known many sorts of hell in the forms of burning blood in battle, and watching men he'd known get ripped apart before his eyes, and their screams as they died, so filled with fear and pain..  
  
...but nothing was worse than being alone.  
  
So caught up in a nostalgia that burned like the acid blood from some of Hojo's beast, Cloud was caught completely unaware as Tifa rushed up, almost out of nowhere, and cocked back a fist to slam it into Sephiroth's face.  
  
----  
  
Tifa Lockhart was tired, dirty and covered in at least three layers of blood, each with the added bonus of being a different color. For the past few weeks, she'd been out on recon, something she dutifully accepted, with only slight grumbling. Reconnaissance, to her, was something she enjoyed doing more than leading a troop - not that she enjoyed anything in this war.  
  
Perhaps it was because she'd seen too many die and at far too young an age, but leading other to what was likely their deaths had stopped being something she could handle early into the war. She wondered sometimes, how Cloud did it, greeted those new troops who looked at him with stars in their eyes and dreams of glory in their hearts, and sent them to an early grave.  
  
Even those that survived were still dead. When Tifa had lead troops, she would leave with a hundred and come back with fifty walking corpses, minds shocked and scarred from what they'd seen. After the first few months, those that lasted got used to it, the reckless sense of near-death that lingered around the edges of the camp, like blood stains in the harsh fabric of the uniforms.  
  
The soldiers scratched messages in the walls, in the common letters of the continents and the willowy lines of Wutain. She couldn't read the Wutain, but she'd asked Yuffie once what they said.  
  
//"Well, a bunch of them aren't polite, Tifa, and those that are aren't any better." Pausing, the girl who was now more a woman, with the muscles of a fighter and the bearing of a commander, tapped her foot on the ground and stretched linked fingers in front of her.  
  
"Near as it translates, one of them's 'Death to Hojo' another's 'Fight for honor and the planet' - you know, stock stuff like that. The big one over there" Yuffie pointed with her outstretched hands to a jumble of diagonals "is pretty neat."  
  
She grinned once as she read it, a fierce, hard grin that Tifa couldn't remember seeing on her before.  
  
"Leave your mortality behind. You no longer require it."//  
  
Tifa passed under those words now as she walked across the main courtyard to the SOLDIER's section of the barracks. She stared up at them, and from this angle they distorted vertically, becoming slanted and narrow, spreading across the wall.  
  
The problem with that, Tifa thought, was that mortality wasn't all you had to leave behind. You had to leave behind fear too, the gut wrenching terror and the voice that chanted a litany of 'I don't want to die' in your head during a charge. You had to leave behind worry, for yourself and for others. You had to leave behind the memories of house and home, although you cherished them, because to remember that there was somewhere else during a battle was death.  
  
Of course, you didn't leave everything behind. You carried your gun and your gloves and your rations on your chocobo. You took the feeling of being a part of something, of fighting for something, and of those that were worth fighting for.  
  
Later than she'd thought, as she crossed the courtyard, and the shadows grew until they were as long as the letters. They twisted into a mass of slanting lines, and Tifa wondered if it spelt anything like 'hope' in Wutain, because you never left that behind either.  
  
When she entered the building, she couldn't see the shadows anymore, and she blinked back the glare from the lights overhead and tried to remember the shapes they made.  
  
"Ma'am? Ms. Lockhart?" Tifa was not a general, or a commander, though she did the work of one, and carried the authority of one. Like Barrett, like Vincent, she had refused the position when it was offered her. She'd never thought she would be a good one anyway.  
  
//Or maybe, you just didn't want to lead people to die.Cloud took the responsibility, so did Yuffie, and even Cid, in his way.but you.//  
  
"Ma'am?" The trooper's voice again, likely wanting her report, although the state of her clothes and the nick and tears on her skin should be evidence enough that the mountains to the east of Midgar and the adjacent swamp were not as cleared as they'd first believed.  
  
//you ran away.//  
  
Shaking her head slightly to dispel her own thoughts, Tifa turned her attention to the trooper - a young man of moderate rank in the Shinra forces, short with dark brown hair and nervous eyes. His lapel bore letters that formed his name: Victor Donawy.  
  
"Yes, Victor, I'm sorry. I was thinking about something else." Tifa liked calling the soldiers by their names. It was an unexpected perk of not having a rank, that she did not have to obey the rules of other people's rank. In this great mass of bodies and souls that was the army, it made it human, to call someone by his name.  
  
The boy blushed slightly and stammered, a kid looking for glory and awed that a hero of the War for the Planet, (and the first time Tifa had heard the name people had for what Avalanche had done, she'd felt the capitalization settle into her, like history, a heavy weight) would deign to call him by his name.  
  
"Um..I...I...I need your report, Ma'am!" The words came out in a rush, and the bow bowed slightly, something adopted from the Wutain soldiers, no doubt.  
  
Inwardly, Tifa smiled. So nervous, so scared, so much like so many other people, before the fear and shyness was covered in scars. "There's decreased activity in the mountains outside the swamps. I didn't run into too many problems. A few, as you can probably tell, but nothing serious. I met up with a good number of troops and several first and second class SOLDIER's as well. I'm assuming they were a division sent out to maintain that area?"  
  
"Yes Ma'am. About half of the fourth division was sent into that area several weeks ago."  
  
"Well, then they're holding it just fine. They didn't seem too beaten up, either. But you've probably learned that much from radio contact?"  
  
Two exchanges counted as a conversation, and she knew he'd be telling this story tonight to his barrack, that Tifa Lockhart had a conversation with him.  
  
"Yes Ma'am...I mean, they haven't contacted us all that much, so we were kinda worried, Ma'am, but what they did tell us, it said that, Ma'am." The trooper was obviously trying for the record number of times one could fit Ma'am in a sentence, and the titles and honor tired Tifa, dragged at her until she felt like she was in the swamp again, trying to fight as the mud and water clung to her and pulled her down.  
  
"That's good, then. I'll write up the technical and send it to the head of the fourth, since his men are in the area." She nodded once to the trooper, who recognized it for the dismissal it was and bowed again before hurrying away, his walk hurried, a step below running.  
  
Tifa smiled at his departure. He was a good kid. They were all such good kids, and they were all so young. She knew she'd been younger, when she went to work in a bar in the slums of Midgar, when she'd broken into Shinra corporation, when she'd watched her best friend die and lost her heart loving someone who couldn't love her in return.  
  
But that all seemed so far away. As if it had happened to someone else, events that happened in a book she read as a child; a story she only remembered when she saw the stars at night, or that exact shade of green, or the hint of fire on silver.  
  
//And after Nibelheim, you weren't so young anymore, were you?//  
  
The troops that came in were green, so new and full of hopes of saving the world that they might as well wear a sign stating: "I want to be a hero when I grow up." Cloud had said that he was sometimes forced to use them in the front line, because they were so unafraid to die, because they were too young to be afraid of death. His voice had been cold and clipped as he said that, the voice of a general, and she did not recognize it.  
  
Still, it was a shame, really, that most of them didn't get to grow up. They never got to grow out of that dream of heroism.  
  
When she saw him passing by in the intersection, a figure of tall black and silver and so terribly familiar, her first thought was that she hadn't grown out of her dreams either, her nightmares.  
  
Her second thought, when she saw Cloud walking with him, not alarmed, was many things at once.  
  
She remembered Cloud's eyes. During the time before Meteor, they were always distant when he was using the memories of Zack or the influence of Sephiroth, retreating into himself. When he gave Sephiroth the black materia, his eyes had those of someone else's, a shade of blue too much like green, and she didn't recognize him. After Aeris's death, his eyes had been over bright with something that was not mako, but he never cried.  
  
And when Sephiroth was taken over by Jenova, his eyes had been vacant, devoid of anything that resembled life. He had stared at the wall of his room for days, until Zack had gone in and forced him to eat, to live.  
  
Every time he'd met the Sephiroth that was not Sephiroth, he'd come back with wounds and that awful blankness in his eyes.  
  
She may not be able to be with him like she wanted, but Cloud Strife was still one of the most important people in the world to her, and she'd be damned if she was going to allow that Jenova jackass to hurt him again.  
  
Tifa placed that determination behind her fist and charged forward. The man turned toward her, but didn't move fast enough and the fist hit with a satisfying solid sound. She jumped back, readying for a fight.  
  
//I have wanted to do /that/ for /years/.//  
  
She was expecting him to fight back. What she wasn't expecting was for Cloud to fight back, sweeping her arm behind her in a gentle but strong arm lock, his voice insistent in her ear.  
  
"Stop it, Tif! He's not who you think he is! He's not a threat!"  
  
Not a threat? After all he'd done, he wasn't a threat? Tifa snarled and twisted out of Cloud's grip, a movement that caught the blond by surprise.  
  
"Not a threat?! And when did that happen, Cloud? There's a lot you're not telling me and I'd /really/ appreciate it if you'd take the damn time to fill me in!"  
  
Cloud shifted his eyes always from her, locking eyes first with Sephiroth, then with Zack. The robed figure Tifa hadn't noticed moved closer to the group, almost trying to avoid the eyes of the troopers watching the group.  
  
"Zack?"  
  
Zack nodded and walked over to them, placing a hand on Tifa's shoulder. "Come on, Tifa. I'll explain. Cloud will be fine, don't worry." He placed his other hand on her hair, ruffling it. He did that occasionally, and she wasn't sure if she hated the big brother gesture or not. "Everything will be fine. Trust me."  
  
Tifa let out a noise of disbelief. "Trust you? I value my life and sanity, thanks Zack."  
  
Zack clutched his heart, wincing in pain. "Wounded to the core! The pain!"  
  
Cloud rolled his eyes. Tifa wasn't sure, but she thought that Sephiroth did as well. "Go Zack. Tifa, he'll explain. You might have to beat it out of him, but he'll explain."  
  
And then Cloud walked away, Sephiroth and the robed man following, after one long appraising look from the former. She tried not to shudder at the feeling of those emerald eyes as Cloud lead them to the residential area.  
  
----  
  
"So, how does it feel?"  
  
The air in Nibelheim was not quite cold, but bordered on it, the indeterminable range of crisp and so clean it almost burned lungs that felt like they had been breathing Midgar forever.  
  
Sometimes, the cure is worse than the disease.  
  
"I wouldn't know, because I don't have a hometown."  
  
Steps behind him, and the person grabbed his shoulders to face him. Sephiroth wondered why he hadn't noticed him before, and then he didn't, because it was him, and of course he could sneak up on himself.  
  
His other self wore the leather uniform that he did, the Masamune at his side. His hands burned into his shoulders, and the green gaze stared into him, flat and cold, dissecting. Like a doctor. Like a scientist.  
  
Like Hojo, his mind whispered, and suddenly Sephiroth wanted to retch.  
  
The other's hands burned, and everything burned. Nibelheim was burning, the fire reaching out to lick the timbers of the buildings, and the screams were mounting, and somehow he knew it was all his fault.  
  
"So that means, you don't have one either. You don't have a home to be away from, but if you did, you're so far away from it now."  
  
He was so calm, the other him. So calm and so utterly insane, the light of madness burning as bright as the fire that ravaged the town. The people ran about, those that still could, trying to get away - from the fire, from everything. The sparks settled into hair and ignited it, and Sephiroth couldn't help but wince as hair of one frantic girl exploded into a burst of incendiary glory.  
  
Sephiroth wore black because it was tactically the most effective color to wear, allowing him to hide as a shadow in a shadow, and for symbolism. It was right, somehow, fitting, to wear a color that symbolized the death he brought.  
  
Cloud had told him Nibelheim was "a quiet town. Boring really, that far up in the mountains. One of those places where everyone knows everyone else, and you're either part of the family or you never will be." He knew that had to be true, that even the apparent bitterness in Cloud's voice couldn't twist the truth that much, but seeing Nibelheim burning all around him, it reminded him of the greatest cities of Wutai during the war, where everyone was a faceless figure, waiting to die.  
  
Symbols. He wore black, but looking at Nibelheim, Sephiroth knew he should wear red.  
  
"You don't need to. Look, you make your own symbols."  
  
He /was/ wearing red, red that drank in the lights from the fires as it clung to his coat, warping the leather as it dried. Covered in blood, and it wasn't the first time.  
  
"I wonder...if you even know where it all came from. Some of it is very old, after all, and from so many different people. Can you tell? Which part comes from Zack?"  
  
There was something wrong in the way his other self smiled, something wrong in his eyes, a green too bright and too alien. He couldn't ever remember tilting his head like that, at that foreign angle and degree of inclination.  
  
"Which part comes from Cloud?"  
  
----  
  
When Sephiroth woke up, the sheets in the bed were drenched in sweat and his hair stuck to his back in wet, clinging strands. The ceiling of the room Cloud had placed him in was unfamiliar, and for a moment he couldn't remember where he was, or where he was supposed to be.  
  
Maybe there wasn't anywhere he was supposed to be.  
  
"I don't have a hometown." The words felt off, bitter and wrong, a metallic taste. The other Sephiroth had worn them better.  
  
//And if I don't have a hometown, how can I feel so far from home?//  
  
He did not sleep again that night.  
  
----- Author's Notes ----  
  
1. If Jenova doesn't kill the world, then two Zacks will. That violates some law of physics, I just know it.  
  
2. Seph, so far is the only one with inner debates. I'm sure they'll all develop them to some degree, but right now he's /special/. Like the way schizophrenics are special.  
  
3. I know there's been a lot of plot and talk, so I'm making up for it. My personal desire to see Seph get punched had nothing to do with my actions in this chapter. Nothing, you hear me! Nothing! 


	6. Chapter 6

As usual disclaimers apply. You know the drill.  
  
Xehorista Tora  
  
Chapter 6  
  
---- ----  
  
"And I'm sucked up by the wonder  
  
and I'm fucked up by the lies.  
  
And I did a hole to lie in  
  
And I build some wings to fly."  
  
- Heather Nova, "Walk this World"  
  
---- ----  
  
Dawn over Midgar was always an interesting phenomenon, better when one had a decent view. Sephiroth had made a habit of watching it, since he was usually up at that hour anyway, doing papers or reports or trying to hammer some technique into a SOLDIER's brain.  
  
He was up to see the dawn for different reasons today, but he felt compensated by the fact he did indeed have a decent view. A more than decent view, in fact, even if there were parts of this Midgar that were unfamiliar, and the city as a whole had an unfinished look, structures of glass and steel rising up, unfinished. Some were rusted, buildings abandoned and left to die.  
  
There'd been buildings like that before, Sephiroth could remember them clearly; however, he couldn't remember there being so many.  
  
Cities were supposed to grow with time, instead, Midgar looked as if it was falling apart.  
  
They'd told him why, it was all in the files that the Doctor had dropped off with them, careful written observations and interviews, all verbatim, all recording an act that he couldn't imagine ever being responsible for.  
  
The logic made sense, in a twisted way, in a Seph sort or way, as Zack would put it. Still though, as he'd poured over all the files left with him after waking, shocked and startled, from his dream (/memory/) of Nibelheim, he couldn't imagine doing something so pretentious, almost downright stupid, no matter how well it was constructed.  
  
//So you're either an idiot or a tactical genius. Pick one.//  
  
Sephiroth winced. Evidently, it was never too early for your common sense to make a nuisance of itself.  
  
/Can't you just go away?/  
  
//Go away? Right. Would you like the full frontal lobotomy now or later?//  
  
/If I go, I'm taking you with me./  
  
//Brilliant military strategy right there. Real easy to see how you got to the top of the Shinra military ladder so quickly.//  
  
It really did sound too much like Zack, on one of those bad days during the Wutain War, when they'd both wake up in the morning, too early in the morning, when there was still mist hanging in the forests and nothing remotely resembling coffee. The resemblance couldn't be good, nor could it be good that it was out in such force today. It was really to early to start banging his head against the wall, he'd wake people up, and it wouldn't be a situation he would care to explain.  
  
He'd always done his best to avoid situations like that, and often succeeded thanks to phenomenal self restraint, training that came from being Shinra's golden boy, training that had also given him the ability to adapt and question.  
  
In a company like Shinra, nobody told you everything, no matter how high up the ladder you were. He hated that feeling, not knowing what he was doing, sometimes going into battles with barely more information than the men under him.  
  
It had been too easy then, almost too easy now, to believe Hojo's whispering half-truths, that they lied to him, that they withheld information because they were afraid of him, using what he didn't know to hold him at bay, on a leash of ignorance.  
  
There were things they were hiding from him now, in this world that was so different, so similar to his own. Loopholes in the story, things that didn't fit. The file had been fairly comprehensive, to the point where it startled him. They obviously weren't worried about him finding out the details of the situation, but Cloud's very presence had suggested that he wasn't worried about it.  
  
And that line of thinking was bad, because it brought him back to the enigma that was this time's Cloud. Sephiroth couldn't help but think that he was staring at himself, somehow, a construct of cold walls, built high and strong. Reasonable enough of a theory, considering the amount of time he spent with Cloud when he was in the ranks. He'd doubtless have picked up something from him, just as Zack had been at the point of finally getting him to break through his shyness, to open up. It was, as he recalled, a technique that employed more than a few headlocks and mussed hairstyles.  
  
There were pictures of Cloud in this file, but they were impersonal things that resembled mug shots. No character could be found aside from the wall that Strife had erected, something all too apparent in the stills.  
  
The pictures were interesting, but better still was the description of events that would occur, some long and bloody trail leading off into oblivion.  
  
The burning of Nibelheim.  
  
Cloud and Zack's five years under Hojo's tender mercies.  
  
Their escape, and the start of Avalanche war against Shinra.  
  
His own 'resurrection' and subsequent death. Dying. Again.  
  
//And I don't.I can't imagine why I would do any of it.//  
  
/Of course not. You're still mostly sane, after all./  
  
And, of course, the deaths.  
  
He wasn't a pacifist, not by any means, but Sephiroth didn't take any pleasure in killing either. He did what he did because he had to, but he remembered -  
  
//Noise and blood and screaming, please please /please/ I don't want to die//  
  
- remembered those he'd killed, remembered their faces, their voices, even as their names faded away. So, as he'd flipped through the file, he'd kept note of the people he'd killed. Would kill. Will kill. Will have killed, and the tense issues alone were making his head hurt.  
  
He hadn't killed Zack, but he had, because he'd sentenced him to five years in Hojo's lab, and he knew, knew now even without reading anything relating to that time that Hojo was not kind. He hadn't killed Cloud, but he had, because he'd made him fight him, made him become the cold man that stared at him from pictures. A man, a SOLDIER - and that was irony, that Cloud was finally what he'd always wanted to be and Sephiroth knew it couldn't have been worth it - with altered blood and too-bright eyes.  
  
But the girl, he'd killed Aeris Gainsbourough in every sense of the word. He could even imagine it, from what he'd read of the file. Swooping down from on high, stabbing downward like some great and terrible bird of prey, some fallen angel; he could remember killing like that, could substitute the Wutain samurai caught apart from the main troop with a girl who didn't even fight her own death.  
  
There were pictures of her, and he pulled them out, splaying the images across the table. Aeris photographed well, laughing and vibrant and alive in the jumble of images: her taking a stance with her staff, half in jest; leaning against the woman who'd attacked him, tired and happy; catching Cloud in a quick hug, the blond wearing an expression of shock.  
  
He remembered pictures of her with another man, a SOLDIER with dark hair and dark eyes. Zack. Aeris was Zack's girl, and he'd killed her.  
  
Except she was back. Her file was thicker than the others, papers detailing how she was connected to the planet, and pivotal in bringing back Zack and Sephiroth.  
  
//Me. Bringing me back, from the dead, because I was dead and in some ways, I still am.//  
  
A disturbing thought, a disturbing line of thinking but Sephiroth couldn't help but stray down it. Aeris had brought him back, had probably helped Cloud travel back in time to fight the thing that bore his mother's name.  
  
Except Jenova wasn't his mother. His mother was a woman, human and mortal, a scientist. Lucrecia. The syllables were unfamiliar, strung together to form the name of a woman he had never known.  
  
He wondered what she looked like. The file, replete with information on him as it was, included no pictures.  
  
Flipping through the pictures with an almost rabid hunger, Sephiroth catalogued the people in them: Highwind was much the same from how he remembered him, but the others he didn't recognize at first. After reading the lineage of the Kisaragi girl, he could see her father in her, the strong line of Wutain leaders that had made a war that should have taken months last for years.  
  
Other than the revelation that the girl, the heir of Wutai, was working with Shinra, leading the Wutain allies, there were no other surprises in the file. Well, from one perspective, everything was a surprise, everything that hadn't yet happened, but would.  
  
Or wouldn't. Sephiroth didn't want to begin to consider what would happen if - /when/ - he and Zack got home. He hoped that there was some law of time continuity or some such nonsense that Hojo would feel at home rambling about that would force Aeris to return them both to their original time.  
  
//There's another loophole. Hojo. All this says about him now is that he's working for 'the other side.'//  
  
Not that that was a big surprise. Hojo didn't have loyalty to anything except science, not even his own species.  
  
He'd probably love to get his hands on the Cetra girl.  
  
//One problem with that though.//  
  
She was supposed to be dead.  
  
The crux of the matter, the gaping loophole, was that if she was pivotal to bringing back the dead, how was she resurrected herself?  
  
//Somehow, I doubt you can pick up Ancients at the local store.//  
  
So, to the mix of aliens and clones and time travel, one could now add a mysterious and altogether inexplicable revival of a Cetra.  
  
Groaning slightly, Sephiroth rubbed the heel of his palm into his forehead and wondered if he could convince anyone to tell him the whole truth anytime soon.  
  
----  
  
Cloud didn't wake up, because he hadn't slept. It's not a common practice for him, not sleeping, but seeing Sephiroth reminded him of it, of everything, and he couldn't sleep.  
  
Seeing Zack didn't help either. Well, not /Zack/, he sees Zack all the time, but seeing a Zack that screamed of everything he'd left behind, a Zack that had never felt cold steel bit through his chest and watch the green of Sephiroth's eye's flare into madness and all of Nibelheim burn. A Zack that had never seen what Hojo could do.  
  
Cloud stops, because he knows he's thinking too much, and that's somewhere he doesn't want to go. He sits up in bed, (even though he doesn't sleep, Cloud still lays in bed at night. It's best to keep up appearances, even if it hurts. Even if he breaks.) and he tries to forget, burying his hands in his hand, twisting hard enough to feel the pain and make his spikes contort out of shape. They'll spring back into their normal position, with a stubbornness that Zack once said had to violate some law. His hair is resilient, has always been resilient, and Cloud can't help but feel like an idiot for being jealous of his hair.  
  
That's the real reason he doesn't sleep, sometimes. Not his hair, although his internal monologues to his own idiocy can run a bit long. Internally, Cloud knows it's because he's afraid, on some deep, dark level he can't acknowledge, that he'll got to sleep and wake up in a lab, and see the blur of a white lab coat and the reflection of light off of glasses and needles. Cloud dreams of the lab sometimes, and he can't imagine anything crueler than waking up and finding out that he wasn't dreaming at all, that he's in the lab again and it's real and the restraints are real and Hojo's here and he's real and it looks like he wants to make up for lost time.  
  
He can tolerate the lab here because Tabitha is as unlike Hojo as possible, but that doesn't make going there easy.  
  
He's heard that nothing worth having in life comes easy. It's an old maxim, a cliché that the officers tell the few new kids who slack in training. When he heard it the first time, it reminded him of home, somehow, because he thought of how that must be what fathers tell their sons, in the crisp air of autumn with the shadow of the mountains at their backs and the faint smell of frost in the currents of air that breeze from the mountains.  
  
The mere concept of fair is one that Cloud's given up on a long time ago, but still he can't help but be offended by the fact that, despite having to fight through every step of life, he hasn't gotten anything at all in return. Except Zack, and to a degree Avalanche, everything come and gone, faded away, withering like flowers left without water, too long in the sun.  
  
They called that something, in school, in biology (and even that term makes Cloud shudder, memories reaching for him, cold and hard and inevitable) the courses that Shinra made them take.  
  
He can't remember if he did well in them or not, and he wonders if that matters. But then, Cloud can't remember a lot of things sometimes.  
  
And sometimes, he remembers too much.  
  
Cloud knows he's brooding, and he knows that he can't seem to stop. He usually has Zack to bring him out of these dark moods, but Zack is too busy, dealing with the troops and -  
  
//People who shouldn't be here and it's him it's him it's him again//  
  
- and everything else.  
  
"Cloud?"  
  
Vincent's quiet voice broke through his thoughts. He hadn't heard the gunman come in, not that that was any real surprise. The man was unchanged, as silent and still as he'd been during his days with Avalanche.  
  
"You need something, Vincent?"  
  
The red-eyed man cocked his head slightly, as if examining Cloud.  
  
"You did not sleep last night, did you Cloud?"  
  
Vincent was almost as good as Zack and Aeris were at reading him. The man understood where he'd been, and what it was like to need to be silent sometimes.  
  
"Couldn't."  
  
Vincent nodded, not approving or disapproving. "The night can often be the time of greatest disquiet, when we finally give ourselves time to think about what we would rather forget."  
  
Vincent was often poetic like that that Cloud sometimes wondered if he spent his time not talking thinking about what he should say.  
  
"I'll try to get some sleep later, don't worry. But my sleeping habits can't be the only reason you stopped by, I know how busy the Turks keep you."  
  
Vincent had emerged early into the war, out of nowhere. Cloud still thinks, although he's never asked him, that the gunman came back to fight because Hojo was still alive. Valentine was too valuable to put in the ranks, so Cloud had opted that he head the Turks, still leaderless after Tseng's death.  
  
After all, Vincent was one of the best Turks the organization had ever had.  
  
Nobody was too happy with the idea - the Turks still hurting over Tseng, and Valentine not sure that he could really lead anyone - but after they'd adjusted to each other, they functioned very well together.  
  
The Turks themselves had been delegated to a varied set of jobs. They trained fighters to join their ranks, and those fledgling Turks were often set up as field commanders of various divisions. The original three Turks, as well as Vincent, had a more esoteric set of jobs, that ranged from straight fighting to information gathering to material collection to reconnaissance.  
  
Rude said it kept them from getting bored. Vincent had merely stated that they all had to do whatever was necessary. Reno had replied that everyone needed to do something interesting now and then, and promptly used that as a segue to try to get everyone to come out drinking. Elena had called him an idiot.  
  
Vincent, whose enhanced metabolism rendered alcohol ineffective rather quickly, had avoided becoming 'properly shitfaced' for the three and a half years he'd been leader of the Turks. It was something that annoyed Reno to no end.  
  
"We all manage, in these times." Vincent nearly smiled, although Cloud wasn't sure how much humor there was in the expression.  
"We have to."  
  
//In some ways, there's nothing left /but/ survival, all of this, this is all just to survive.//  
  
Thoughts that bothered him sometimes, before he could push them away, into the recesses of his mind. Who was to say that when the war ended anything would be better than before?  
  
/Zack's alive. Aeris's alive. Sephiroth's./  
  
//Worse than dead.//  
  
He would not think of that now. He would survive, because, as Vincent said, he /had/ to.  
  
"Where are the Turks?"  
  
Vincent tilted his head slightly to one side, a gesture Cloud knew meant he was thinking.  
  
"I sent them to retrieve the past time's Sephiroth and Zack from their rooms, and them meet us by the training area. They should be heading there now, we'll have to leave to meet them."  
  
Which meant he had to see them again, had to see /him/ again and god that was not going to be easy.  
  
"Alright. I'm coming."  
  
----  
  
She always heard the planet now, a constant hum of voices that resonated in her mind, so that she sometimes caught herself wishing that she could simply get inside her mind and scratch at the itch it made.  
  
Zack asked her why she hummed so much now, why she played the radio, despite the static that always filtered out of the speakers, some of the old Shinra communications towers still destroyed. He'd laughed and smiled and said it almost seemed as if she hated silence now.  
  
She'd smiled back at him and said nothing. She didn't have the heart to tell him the truth, that he was right. Maybe she didn't want to admit it herself, as if saying the words aloud would give them form and substance.  
  
"What do you think, Aeris?"  
  
Of course, if there was one definite advantage to being close of Zack, it was that he was more than willing to fill up the gaps of silence with sound.  
  
"Well, I don't think he's a threat, if that's what you mean."  
  
Zack sighed, rolling his eyes dramatically. He was no more capable of subtlety now than he had been before his revival.  
  
"Any more information? Or was that one gem all I can expect from the great Cetra?"  
  
She turned to face him, her eyes a serious mass of sea green. "The planet works in mysterious ways, Zack. You would be wise not to question them." Her mask began to slip, and she struggled to continue.  
  
"So, you would be wise not to question /me/, Mister General."  
  
"Hey, I worked hard for that title. It's the kind of job that works you to death, you know."  
  
Aeris groaned at the pun, only Zack could make light of having died.  
  
But still, it wasn't all that funny, and unbidden the memory returned to her: grey sheets of rain long ago, the smell of decay in the slums of Midgar, gunshots and the feeling of overwhelming loss, although when pressed her mother said she hadn't heard a sound.  
  
Some things never went away. No matter how much you ignored them, no matter how much you tried.  
  
//And I'm trying so /hard/..//  
  
"Aeris? I never granted you brooding privileges, you know. Besides, Spike and Vincent bought up all that stock."  
  
"And the market's non-negotiable?"  
  
"Extremely."  
  
She couldn't help smiling. Zack could always make her smile, no matter what the situation was. It was one of the reasons she fallen so hard for him, even though he was from Shinra and she was so afraid of Shinra, back then.  
  
//Besides, he was the only one nice enough to buy a flower.//  
  
It was almost strange, except it wasn't, connected as they were, but she'd met the two men she cared most about the same way.  
  
//"Want to buy a flower? They're only a gil."//  
  
They were so kind, both of them, so alike and so different. Knowing them as well as she did, she could see the signs that Zack was watching her without trying to be obtrusive. In a few seconds she'd receive a brooding warning. Time to change the subject.  
  
"You know, Zack, you're forgetting one vital piece of information. You have not eaten at all recently, and neither have I, since you've spent all your morning training recruits, and I've spent all of mine looking over our Materia stocks, so we /both/ are going to take a nice visit to the /wonderful/ Shinra cafeteria."  
  
Swallowing noticeably, Zack backed away from her, hands held beseechingly out. "Now, now, Aeris. I /like/ my stomach and all of it's associated organs, and don't want to did them out with a spoon."  
  
"A dull, rusty spoon."  
  
"A dull, rusty spoon.wait a minute. How are spoons anything but dull? I never learned this secret Shinra spoon sharpening technique." Zack began to gesticulate so widely Aeris feared he'd fall over. "You.you're a spy! For the enemy!"  
  
Finding it necessary to remind herself that she was not fond of sarcasm, Aeris shook her head. "The enemy is going to enslave us with spoons?"  
  
"No. The Shinra cafeteria food is their main attack point. The spoons are only a backup plan."  
  
"Ah. I see. If that's the case, you'd better condition yourself against it."  
  
"Oh, I intend to."  
  
Aeris allowed herself to laugh with him and smile, wishing that it could drown out the voices that were building in her head.  
  
----  
  
Nibelheim was burning again, and Sephiroth wondered if this was some sort of bizarre penance that he had to pay for crimes not yet committed - to dream of Nibelheim and its funeral fire night after night.  
  
Or not even night. He'd fallen asleep in his room, and it was still early enough then. What was wrong with him, that he was that tired so early?  
  
//I hope I'm getting some rest while I'm stuck here.//  
  
It was difficult to wander about a burning town: pieces detached themselves from buildings and fell, causing more than one near mishap. Still, the buildings themselves weren't consumed, despite the debris. The seemed to renew themselves, a perpetuating cycle of fire and fuel.  
  
"It'll burn down eventually. Give it time."  
  
He was also rather tired of having people sneak up on him. Damn, but he had the reactions of a drunken trooper in his dreams.  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
The man was tall, garbed in the tattered remains of clothing. He stood next to the houses, unaffected by the flames and the heat, hints of light catching in dirty, matted hair.  
  
"Everything burns down eventually. Everything falls apart. That's what she does, after all."  
  
The man's voice was calm and collected, for all that his words had the feel of inane ramblings muttered by those who were barely even human anymore. Sephiroth remembered the wards where they put those who couldn't handle the psychological damage the SOLDIER treatments could do.  
  
Starved shells of men, hiding in corners, muttering in the dark.  
  
"Who are you?" Sephiroth repeated, louder and slower, enunciating the words, in case the man was deaf or dumb or both.  
  
"Ask a stupid question."  
  
"What?" That had certainly been a response, but not one he'd been expecting.  
  
"I said: 'Ask a stupid question.' As in 'What a stupid question for you to ask, idiot.' There are so many better things you could have asked - like who 'she' is, or why you're dreaming this again - and I don't have time to answer stupid questions."  
  
Cold, clipped words, and the white haired man tried to restrain the anger growing in him. Damn it, dream or no dream, he was not going to stand here and be told what and what not to do.  
  
"I don't have to ask you anything."  
  
The man sighed once, as if he'd known that Sephiroth was going to say that.  
  
"You're right, you don't have to ask me anything. But you want to. If you're still saying things like that, though, you're not ready for the answers. We've still got time. Not a lot of time, but enough."  
  
Turning around, Sephiroth could see a small quirk of a smile on the man's face. The rest of his features were obscured by his matted, dirty hair.  
  
"They'll probably be coming to your room soon, you know. You should wake up."  
  
----  
  
Sephiroth awoke to a creak in his neck, legacy of dozing off in a chair, on top of a desk with the pages of the file spread over it. He could hear voices outside his door, people passing by as they hurried from one place in the Shinra building to another.  
  
The voices paused, then grew louder as they halted by his door. A loud knock announced the intent of those outside it.  
  
//Fucking dream just had to be right, didn't it?//  
  
Sephiroth wondered if it was possible to get angry at your own subconscious, as the people outside the room opened the door and the Turks stepped inside.  
  
"Aw, did we wake you? Sorry." Reno spoke, and it was apparent from his tone that he was /not/ at all sorry. Sephiroth bristled at the words lying underneath his opening statement, and at the way the female Turk - the only one of the three he didn't recognize - had her hand always hovering over he gun; however, he said nothing, opting instead to rise from the chair and stretch slightly.  
  
It was a subtler form of posturing than say, flexing your muscles in a crowd, but the effect was exactly what he intended. He was rested enough that he felt like himself again, and he knew he could move like coiled steel if he wanted to.  
  
Seeing the wary look in Reno's eyes, he knew that he'd reminded them of what he could do too.  
  
//Even without Masamune, I'm still someone they should treat carefully. I won't let them push Zack and me around.//  
  
And there was a thought: where was his sword? He'd had it when the lifestream took them up, and he thought it was in the room they arrived in, but he didn't have it now, and confused as he'd been previously, he hadn't thought to ask about it.  
  
No time like the present, though.  
  
"Where's my sword?"  
  
Reno, who'd obviously elected himself group speaker, let loose a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a disbelieving snort.  
  
"What, did you think we'd let you have it right off the bat, /General/? Your weapons and materia are in a safe place. When Strife and the boss give the okay, maybe you'll get them back. If you behave, that is."  
  
The problem with situations like these was that every question led to more questions, and Sephiroth couldn't help but ask one Reno's last comment had brought up. The files hadn't mentioned him at all, and he couldn't help but wonder.  
  
" 'The boss'? Why isn't Tseng with you now?  
  
He was not expecting the reaction he received. Something hard and dark flickered over Reno's face, while Rude's left hand tightened into a fist and Elena choked back something that was likely a sob.  
  
Collecting himself, Reno answered him.  
  
"You know, Turks are kept out of just about all Shinra records. The only reason Valentine's in that file is that he wasn't on 'active duty' when the Meteor events occurred. Tseng, being the boss man and all, was kept out of all records. Including your wonder file over there."  
  
Rude added his own piece to the conversation.  
  
"It's part tradition, part other reasons. Personal."  
  
Eyes narrowing at the runaround, the white haired man continued to press his question. "All that I knew already. It doesn't explain where he is."  
  
Elena nearly cut him off as she spat out the answer.  
  
"He's dead. He died during.he died with Meteor."  
  
And he was sure he was not imagining a glimmer of repressed hatred in her eyes; but Rude changed the subject before he could get any further.  
  
"Valentine asked us to pick up you and Zack. He's with Strife now, and we'll bring the two of you to meet them. They're going down to training, along with Reeve."  
  
The last name rung a bell. Reeve.Reeve Brannon. Sephiroth remembered him vaguely, from the time he'd been taken from. Brannon had been pretty high up the Shinra ladder, poised to takeover Urban Planning and Development from the idiots who'd been running it. He'd also, according to the information in the file, been the Shinra plant in the Avalanche group during Meteor.  
  
//He watched them while they looked for me.//  
  
According to the file, he was also co-president of Shinra with Scarlet, of all people. Sephiroth could only hope the woman had matured in time, and changed from his memories of an ambitious and ruthless woman.  
  
//Following Rufus's death. Rufus is dead.//  
  
Sephiroth wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.  
  
//Cold, ambitious, but he had less of his father's stupidity, less of his father's blind pride.I wonder...what he became before he died?//  
  
Refraining from shaking his head to clear it, he was unable to refrain from allowing one inevitable thought from entering his mind.  
  
//I wonder what I became before I died?//  
  
Pushing back the answers that rose to meet him - //crazy, twisted shell, Jenova, destroyer, hurt Zack, hurt Cloud, betrayer, betrayer, betrayer// - Sephiroth realized that the Turks hadn't moved, waiting for him with a cool calm that he remembered in Tseng.  
  
He pulled the emotions and reactions and thousands of insane thoughts and questions down, pushed them deep inside himself where he could barely reach and allowed a small smirk to tug at the corners of his mouth.  
  
Reno wasn't the only one who could be an asshole.  
  
"By all means, then.."  
  
And Sephiroth nodded, almost bowed, every movement lined with sarcasm, false deference.  
  
//Let them know, then and here and now..//  
  
"..lead the way."  
  
//....that I have /no/ superiors.//  
  
The Turks kept him in front of them, and they fingered the safeties on their guns as they followed him out.  
  
----  
  
The wind came from the Northern lands, and carried with it all the cold and ice, a wet lash of cold rain. The Da-chao mountains caught some of that moisture and sheltered Wutai's capital from it, but here, on the slopes past the northern face there was no shelter from the biting cold.  
  
Bundled tight atop a golden chocobo, the slight figure was bent into the wind, watching it whip across the waves and lash at the collection of tents and people, Wutain and Shinra, living and fighting and dying together.  
  
In this midst of a war like this, few cared anymore for distinctions of race and origin.  
  
To someone else, it wouldn't have appeared that the lone figure was doing much, but the troops under her had long trusted Yuffie Kisaragi's ability to read the land and the wind. She was younger than many of her soldiers, but she'd grown into the responsibility and duty that the heir of Wutai carried with her.  
  
It'd changed her, for the better, she knew, although sometimes she missed being sixteen and feeling like she could save the world.  
  
//Been there, done that, and someone hit rewind and play again without telling anyone.//  
  
On the other continents, Yuffie knew she wouldn't be able to read the situation this well, but she'd grown up on Wutai: scratched her arms crawling through thickets, bruised herself tumbling through bamboo, and once, on one memorable occasion, had broken her arm climbing the Da-chao face. She /knew/ Wutai; it was her home.  
  
And Wutai did not have storms like this during this season. Monsoon season was as predictable as anything could be, these days, and this gale, which soaked her clothes and blew her braid out wildly, until it was nearly parallel to the ground, was not anything near normal for Wutai, even during these times.  
  
Sighing, she turned her chocobo towards the camp, the bird warked happily at the thought of the meager shelter of the makeshift stables. She couldn't blame him; she wished she could rest.  
  
Her short-range was reliable enough even in this weather. Her chocobo, Hawkeye, knew the way back to camp well enough that he didn't need her to guide him, allowing her to focus her attention on contacting Ky, her second-in-command.  
  
"I need you to contact Cid. Tell him to get me some from of pickup in the capital. I've got to get to Midgar."  
  
The wind and rain lashed at her back, but Yuffie couldn't help but feel that she shouldn't feel this cold.  
  
----  
  
Author's Notes -  
  
- I swear, I swear, I swear, I /swear/ that there will be action next chapter. This was very much a building up chapter, introducing some characters we haven't seen yet, and enough foreshadowing to drown a capybara.  
  
- I didn't get where I wanted to with this chapter, but I wanted the damn thing out already. Apologies to characters that should be here but aren't. *coughTifacoughNanakicough*  
  
- With Vincent, and the Turks, and all that. It really falls under the 'why not' category. Couldn't think what else to do with him, anyway. Also, Reno gets drunk too much to be an adequate leader. 


	7. Chapter 7

All usual disclaimers applicable.  
  
----  
  
Xehorista Tora  
  
----  
  
Chapter Seven  
  
----  
  
Lost, it slowly went away,  
  
Was gone without a trace.  
  
I'm tired and I can't remember.  
  
Lost, I thought it came to stay  
  
And put me in my place,  
  
I'm tired and I won't remember.  
  
- Skold, "Remember"  
  
---- ----  
  
There was nothing human left in bone village. The humans who used to live there, digging through the dirt in vain attempts to discover the secrets of the past had long since fled, and the few that had stayed were no longer anything resembling human.  
  
They hadn't been doing much of value anyway. She'd absorbed their memories when they became part of her, one of her mindless drones, and they'd barely begun to scratch the surface of what the Cetra were, what the artifacts they'd been digging up meant.  
  
//Worthless little drones.//  
  
Not like her son. Her son was strong and proud and beautiful and she was so happy to have him home again. She was a part of her son, and no matter how much his mind beat at the walls of his cage, she knew best.  
  
//Mineminemineminemine.//  
  
Sephiroth was hers, not completely, but close enough. The mako in him reeked of them, of the Cetra -  
  
//Hate them. Hate them, green and glowing and they hurt and hate them.//  
  
- and it still burned her when she got too close, to his heart or his mind. But she had enough of herself in him that she could hold onto his body, hold him close to her and sometimes she could forget that they weren't one.  
  
/...you're insane..let me go..bitch../  
  
The voice rose from within the body, from the mind that was still Sephiroth, and Jenova smiled at his weak defiance.  
  
//Mine. /My/ son.//  
  
He hated the possessives, she knew. He hated them because he'd lived so long without them, that those few years, entrenched in the war though they were, seemed almost like some hazy memory of paradise; of blue skies and clear waters.  
  
/...fucking bitch../  
  
//Mine. Always mine. Not even he can take you from me.//  
  
Jenova loved him so much that it was almost its own form of hatred, a strange emotion that twisted and writhed like so many poisonous snakes.  
  
She loved him, and she hated so much because of it. She hated the color green, because it was them, it was the Cetra and the lifestream, glowing with a power that hers could not yet equal. Her green, the girl, the last.  
  
//But I know...I know, I know, and they don't, they don't know...//  
  
She'd been reminded of the fact that their strength was beyond hers when she'd felt the lifestream flare up impossibly bright a day ago, its full force brought to bear by the last Cetra.  
  
It had receded, but she'd felt something new when it did, something new and so familiar, so much like home that she knew they'd somehow brought her son back, /again/.  
  
Except it wasn't really possible. They could make as many bodies as they wanted, but there was only one soul, only one original, and it was /hers/. Everything in her screamed that it couldn't happen, couldn't be.  
  
But she'd felt him, and he'd felt real. This was some strange new power of the Cetra, and suddenly the hate burned in her again, erasing her calm countenance that she wore as she strategized.  
  
Hate. She hated knowing that even now /they/ were still stronger than she was, they still had what she could only grasp at, and shudder in rage as it burned her hand when she dared to touch it, holding on until she had to pull back, and all that was left was the cold.  
  
Cold. Her son was cold, to everyone, to her, and she couldn't stand the cold silence her son gave her, after all she was doing for him, after how much she loved him.  
  
//I'm doing this for you, for you, all for you, and why can't you see, my son? Why can't you see what I'm building here, for you?//  
  
From Sephiroth, there was no answer, and the rage burned in her again, because they'd done this to him, they were keeping him from her, even now, and she couldn't do anything about it. He wouldn't even admit he was her son, and his words of strong, frantic denial hurt her more than she would have thought possible. She hadn't thought she had the capacity for that sort of pain.  
  
But when he'd yelled those words at her, the strongest his thoughts had ever been, that Lucretia was his mother, and she was some 'alien fucking bitch' everything had hurt, so hard and sharp that she hadn't known what it was at first, what was going on.  
  
Hojo had said to her that she'd have to be careful, that she could feel when she was so close to someone real, but she hadn't expected his words to understate the intensity of the emotion that she felt to the degree that they did.  
  
It was so cold, this close to the crater, to her home. She come here, from a place so far away that she could not remember it, only the long expanse of travel through the void of space, where everything was cold.  
  
She'd always been cold, and when she came here she sought warmth. She'd watched them, the Cetra who came to heal the wound she had made, and modeled her form after theirs, after the ones who had burned so brightly when the lifestream took them.  
  
They must have been so warm, so happy as they slipped into that endless green. Watching from afar, more force than form, Jenova knew she'd never wanted anything as much as she wanted that warmth.  
  
But when she came to them, wearing the faces of those who were in that promised warmth, the Cetra had shuddered away from her, hate and fear in their eyes. They'd called the lifestream out of the earth, a shimmering wall of green, and she wanted to welcome it, held out her arms to welcome that warmth.  
  
Those moments were so long ago, millennia and more, but she stilled remembered every instant of what happened next. The lifestream /burned/ at her, as cold as ice and as hot as the fire in the hearts of the stars she'd passed in her flight through space. She'd recoiled from it, but they had pursued her, and they had called great monsters from the earth, and all her touch had brought was death, and she knew they hated her as they sealed her in the cold rocks of the earth, far from all heat and light.  
  
It had taken her years of existence in that darkness to realize that she hated it too. She waited in the earth, and grew as a disease grows, as a plague. She knew she'd be free, and then she'd take all that they wouldn't give her an age ago.  
  
She'd consume them all, take over the lifestream that burned her even now, but she was stronger now, strong enough to stand against the pain and hold it inside her.  
  
She was stronger now, she would be stronger now, and the lifestream was weaker, weakened by the foolish humans who were fighting to stave off her coming.  
  
She'd take them too, take everything until the moon turned red as blood and the stars feel from the sky like so many chips of broken glass. She'd even drain the color out of the sky, that damnable blue that reminded her son so much of the failure, the reject of  
  
Hojo's that Sephiroth loved.  
  
He shouldn't love anyone but her.  
  
//Should I take him too, my son? Should I take him, so that you can be with him, with me, forever and ever and ever...//  
  
Horror washed over her from the corner of the mind that was still only him, horror turning into a slow, sick rage.  
  
/I'll kill you...kill you bitch...never find all the pieces.../  
  
His voice faded in and out like a dying cry from the planet. He was so hard to hear, sometimes, so withdrawn and alone.  
  
But he had her, and she loved him, and soon she'd take the failure, and her son's friend who still reeked of the lifestream, like her son had, of a spirit still fresh from its green flow.  
  
And she'd take this /other/, this other than felt like her son but couldn't be.  
  
She'd take them all, and they'd all be a part of her, and forget that they ever were anything else.  
  
----  
  
Sephiroth wasn't dead, but he knew he was in hell.  
  
If he hadn't been dead before - well, technically, he'd been dead twice before, but he didn't really care to count - he'd think that he was dead now, was dead and stuck in some infernal torture of the damned, forced to spend all eternity trapped in a corner of his head while his body moved like some awful puppet and the full force of Jenova pushed at him at all times, so strong he could barely hear himself think sometimes.  
  
He was walled off, protected by the green fire of the mako in his blood, and the barrier distanced him from Jenova. He could barely reach her, although she, her presence so much stronger than his, broadcast her every thought and feeling.  
  
And Jenova /felt/. She felt everything in extremes, so strongly that it hurt even through the barrier.  
  
She couldn't feel what he felt, he knew that, unless he sent his thoughts to her, pushed them through the barrier powered by mako and the Cetra. It was one of his small amusements - one of his only amusements - to push feelings and thoughts at her that he knew would hurt her, if she was indeed capable of hurting.  
  
Thoughts like the fact that he hated her, hated her so much he could barely remember a time when he'd hated anything so much. Or the fact that he wasn't her son, she wasn't his mother, his mother was real and human.  
  
Even dead, Lucretia was so much more of a mother to him than this beast.  
  
The thoughts that hurt her most of all were the thoughts that had love in them; love attached to other people. It let Jenova know he was capable of love, just not directed toward her.  
  
He'd sent thoughts like those towards her when she'd made his body fight Cloud.  
  
//She made me...made me fight him, and I swore, I swore I'd never hurt him again...and she /made me/...//  
  
The hatred and rage he felt over that had barely begun to fade. That she'd taken him and made him fight Cloud, when he'd promised the blond that he'd never do anything like that again. That Cloud would never have to fight Sephiroth again, and see the blood of someone he cared about, someone he'd loved since his days at Shinra, on his blade.  
  
She hated the fact that he loved Cloud, that he'd gotten closer to Cloud in the four years he'd been back than he'd ever been to anyone; even closer than he'd been to Zack.  
  
It had been hard, despite their years of friendship in Shinra, years with feelings that had run far deeper than friendship, for Cloud to overcome himself and everything that had happened between them, in those years that Sephiroth knew he was not responsible for, and yet still carried all the blame. It had been almost as hard for Sephiroth to overcome his own shields and defenses. In some way, he'd been forced to finally grow up, strange as it sounded, forced to deal with the world instead of holding himself apart from it.  
  
But after that period where they broke down their walls and rebuilt them, but different this time, not lower but with more doors; after that, things had been better than he would have imagined possible. The war was turning their way, with the three of them fighting, and he could almost imagine an after, an ending where there was happiness and peace.  
  
And Jenova had taken those almost-dreams and shattered them into so many pieces that Sephiroth wasn't sure he'd ever be able to pick them all up again.  
  
His body moved through the camp Jenova and Hojo had erected in what used to be Bone Village, leaving his mind free to wander. To remember, even though it hurt.  
  
Remember:  
  
//Before death and rebirth, before Meteor, before everything: remember a time so long ago it doesn't seem real, doesn't seem like it could be real. Zack and Cloud: the former tried in battle, the latter too young to have even lifted a sword against an enemy with intent to kill. So old, so young, so young because everyone seemed younger than him then, because he'd seen so much, and so blind to what everyone else had lived through, what everyone else saw.  
  
So blind to everything, and he never thought to look, thought to realize what he was missing.  
  
But then, it was the three of them, and Zack was talking to loudly and Cloud was blushing, a faint tinge of red plastered across his cheeks as he weekly protested so of Zack's rather lewd suggestions.  
  
And because he could, because he wanted to, because no one was looking, Sephiroth let himself smile.//  
  
The memory faded and the cold reality rushed it, sharp and cruel. Jenova was still controlling him, moving him, and although he knew he couldn't feel the wind and the air, everything still felt so cold.  
  
A voice, sibilant as a snake and just as treacherous, rose from behind him, and Sephiroth felt himself shudder in his green-walled corner, and cursed himself for that reaction, that even now the man could startle him so.  
  
"The ranks await your command, Sephiroth."  
  
Hojo hadn't changed as much as Sephiroth had expected him to. He was as much a monster now as he'd been before, but he still looked like the strange, apathetic scientist that had reigned over so much of Sephiroth's life.  
  
But he was /different/, even if he hadn't /changed/. The man had always been sadistic and psychotic, and while those traits were perhaps more pronounced now that he had given them free reign, they'd always been there. He looked so normal now, though, standing in the midst of so much barely controlled frenzy that it was almost incongruous.  
  
But even though his shape was human, something unreal danced in Hojo's eyes, and the dark iris had long since swallowed the white around it, turning the entire eye black. Sephiroth wondered if he could still see, or if it even mattered to the doctor.  
  
He didn't want to know what the doctor did when he got bored.  
  
Hojo always called him Sephiroth, and he somehow made the made the name seem wrong, because it was him saying it. Anyone calling him Sephiroth now, when he so obviously wasn't, would be wrong and strange, but somehow it was worse when Hojo said it.  
  
Even Cloud had never called him Sephiroth after he'd been taken, not even in their one fight, after Sephiroth had wounded him and his eyes had screamed 'not again.' Even then, the name he spat out had been Jenova's and Sephiroth had been relieved, incredibly happy, because it meant Cloud didn't blame him. He'd been forgiven by Cloud, even for the things he'd yet to do.  
  
And belatedly, he realized Hojo was still talking, and Jenova was listening intently to the scientist.  
  
"...The lifestream has been successful in bringing the two past replicas back. Interestingly, this did not result in the expected time paradox and annihilation of said replicas as soon as they entered our time stream.." Hojo laughed, long and low, an evil, malicious sound.  
  
"So, since they're still active in this time, they're viable specimens for whoever gets them first."  
  
The man wore no glasses anymore, but light shone off the mass of darkness in his eyes with the same disturbing effect.  
  
"As I said, your ranks await your command, Sephiroth."  
  
Panic set in then, at Hojo's calm statement, at the sea of assembled monsters. He knew he had to warn them all, before he watched everything break apart.  
  
----  
  
"And Kisaragi's requested that Cid - or one of his lackeys - give her transport back to Midgar. She's left her second in charge of the Wutain troops, with Godo still acting as official head."  
  
Reeve nodded at the woman who sat across the small table, her blond hair pinned tightly, sensibly back and dressed in regulation field gear; the fact that the pants and shirt were clean made them look like parade material compared to what the rest of the troops wore. Still, it was a far cry from the red dresses that Scarlet of Shinra had once been known for.  
  
The war had changed everyone, Reeve knew. To some it came naturally: Yuffie had grown into her responsibilities as easily as breathing; while others had to be forced: Vincent had rejected both offers of high rank and Turk leadership for so long that Zack still called him an ex-Turk sometimes.  
  
Sometimes, though, he couldn't help but think that Scarlet had changed more than any of them. The woman had entered the war as arrogant and cruel as she'd been before it, still vying for the top spot in the company, although throwing her whole into the war effort all the same. He wondered how much of that was selfish; Reeve was sure that Scarlet had no desire to become part of Jenova's fold.  
  
Her attitude had changed during one of Jenova's first large assaults, her direct attack on Junon. At that time, so early in, they'd only had Cloud and the rest of Avalanche and the Turks, and everyone was fighting, staging desperate warfare to try to keep one of the only strongholds they had except for Midgar, and the only fort that bordered on the water.  
  
It almost seemed a miracle that, by the end of the battle, the only death was Heidegger's.  
  
//Still not sure if anyone was really sorry to see him go.//  
  
The large, almost brutish man wasn't very missed, unsurprising considering how inefficient and boorish he'd been, and how well Scarlet had taken over his division as well as her own.  
  
The battle had changed Scarlet too. During it, one of Hojo's more unpleasant creations had managed to rake her face and torso. She'd been in the Infirmary for nearly two weeks, and the scars that marred her face and shoulders had never faded. Reeve doubted they ever would. The woman had come close to losing an eye, as well, but he couldn't help but think that the near-maiming was something of a blessing in disguise.  
  
Since the incident, years ago now, the woman had changed completely. She was still as caustic and callous, but she was no longer cruel, and had been humbled by what she no doubt regarded as the loss of her beauty.  
  
Scarlet was a woman possessed, driven not to accelerate through the ranks of Shinra but to defeat Jenova. And Hojo. The 'I hate Hojo' line grew longer by the day, hell, by the second.  
  
It was strange, that as Scarlet had abandoned her pursuit of power, she'd received it. Reeve never forgot how strange this partnership between the two of them was, even unnatural in some sense, when they'd hated each other so fiercely in Shinra, years ago.  
  
//Murderous rumors in the hallways, that company was like a battleground, but we never knew what true war could be then, and we were so stupid, fighting against each other.//  
  
No one had known then, in what he'd heard Reno refer to as their 'halcyon days of youth,' (something he'd remembered because he'd been surprised the Turk knew the word, but then again, he was sure Reno enjoyed making people believe he was stupid) how bad things could get.  
  
"What's her ETA?"  
  
Scarlet flipped through several papers in her ever present stack of folders. Reeve could hardly remember seeing the woman without folders and a gun on her at all times.  
  
"Highwind's still based at Junon, helping ferry researchers back and forth, so he won't be picking her up personally. He's contacted one of his lackeys out at the Rocket town airfields to pick her up. According to reports, they left several hours ago, so Kisaragi should arrive in Midgar in the morning."  
  
Reeve nodded. Rocket town had become something of the base of air operations. The level plains were easy to evacuate if required, and made for an ideal airfield. Cid still commanded the Highwind, even though he technically oversaw all air operations. His wife, Shera, was one of the researchers at Junon, although the entire Junon team spent half their time at Midgar, and vice versa. He knew that Tabitha was due to go the harbor city soon.  
  
Scarlet moved a strand of hair out of her face, back in to the practical bun, and Reeve couldn't help but wonder if he'd start seeing gray in those blond strands. The woman had been in Shinra longer than almost any of them now. While she wasn't old, this war tore at people, wore them thin.  
  
A part of him was surprised that no one had broken apart yet. He'd thought Cloud would have, with everything life and time seemed determined to put him through, but the blond fighter appeared to have vast reserves of coping mechanism.  
  
//Bullshit. Cloud doesn't cope, he /buries/. Everything he feels that's wrong he just buries deep inside. Why do you think Zack and Tifa never let him brood?//  
  
"I've received reports from Wallace, out in North Corel. They haven't sustained any major attacks since the one the trio put down, but he does say that the miners there have noticed that the mako levels are lower than they've recorded."  
  
That caught Reeve's attention. Anything out of the ordinary was possibly something that could later get you killed. Nothing could be overlooked.  
  
"Lower? Is that a possible aftershock from the events that Aeris directed - the common memory and the past?"  
  
A shake of the head, slight but sure, as the woman flipped through her files to pull out a graph. She slid it across the table to Reeve - a representation of the mako readings in the North Corel caves over the past three days. The line was fairly constant, small fluctuations not affecting the overall reading. Early yesterday there was a sharp rise , followed by a sharp drop, which returned to the normal level after less than an hour. The lifestream had stabilized itself after Cloud and his two inadvertent passengers had returned to the present time frame, out of the lifestream's communal memory that had transported Cloud to the past. There was a period of normalcy in the graph, but sharply following it the lifestream had dipped down, a sharp decline that caused nothing but worry, with no explanation.  
  
"Does Mideel corroborate this?  
  
"Not only Mideel, but Dr. Tabitha's given me reports from Cosmo Canyon, Wutai, and Nibelheim that all agree on this strange dip. I've asked her up to meet with us, she should be here shortly." The woman glanced at her watch. "Immediately, in fact."  
  
Reeve ran a hand through hair that was already ruffled and uncombed. "And Yuffie's found some urgent reason to be in Midgar."  
  
"She does have the only functional Knights of the Round summon, after all. If the shit is moving toward the fan, it's better that Kisaragi's here to enjoy it."  
  
"For whatever good she can get out of that summon, with the lifestream strained as it is." As Jenova infiltrated the lifestream the power of materia began to dim. Not the magic materia, as those drew more from the caster than the planet, but the summons that must reside in the lifestream themselves had been growing fainter and fainter as the war progressed. And they, the raw forces inside the planet, died.  
  
They'd expected it, to a certain degree, but parts of the phenomenon were still completely inexplicable. Like why Leviathan - which Yuffie had given back to Godo - was as strong as ever, but Hades would barely poison an enemy anymore. Or why the first incarnation of the Bahamut series had grown /stronger/, of all things, but the later two had grown to be pale shadows, hardly doing any damage.  
  
Knights of the Round had been the strongest summon, but it had been nearly a year since Yuffie had cast it, and Reeve wondered if it was at all effective anymore. Things weathered, after time. Nothing stayed the same anymore, in this war. Everything grew old and rusted, a faded and sickly shade of what used to be.  
  
Things fell apart, and you tried to pick up the pieces as best you could, even though they were sharps fragments, the memories of what used to be, and they cut your hands.  
  
Clouds hands hadn't stopped bleeding since before Jenova. Vincent, Zack, everyone had blood on their hands, and so much of it wasn't their own, but so much of it was.  
  
Scarlet's voice pulled him out of his reverie. "We don't have any real data on how the summons work, or how they've been affected in the war. We have results, and effects, but no causes."  
  
Knocking followed her comment, and the door swung open without waiting for permission from those inside. Dr. Tabitha entered the room, the garish color of her lab coat set off by the light streaming in from the windows, the sun high overhead. It was nearly noon.  
  
The scientist had her glasses on, and her eyes held the strained look of one who had spent too many hours reading files. She carried several of these files with her, under one arm. Her hair was pulled up tightly, but several strands escaped, giving the head of the science department an altogether disheveled appearance.  
  
She stopped before the table and pulled her glasses off and tucked them into the front pocket of her lab coat in one motion. She began to make motions to smooth out the wrinkles in the loose fabric, then stopped, and muttering something that could only be "fuck it" sat down.  
  
"Reeve, Scarlet; I apologize for being late."  
  
Scarlet waved it off. "You're all of two minutes late. Besides, it's given me time to explain the mako readings to our president here."  
  
At that, Tabitha immediately began flipping through more folders, searching for a file of some sort. "I have more information regarding that, although it's not conclusive enough yet to decide anything. I wish we still had Icicle Inn, or Bone Village...their labs were so much closer to the crater then the one we've set up...Here it is!"  
  
The doctor wrestled two sheets of paper clear of the folders. "We've gathered this data from the lab we've set up in the materia cave north of North Corel, one of the several Avalanche found during Meteor."  
  
She slid the paper across the table to them, the clear overlay fluttering up.  
  
"The first graph - the one on the white paper - is of the mako recordings. You notice the spike and subsequent recession is an exact duplicate of the readings found in the other labs."  
  
Reeve nodded. "And the second sheet?"  
  
"The second sheet is a printout of the percentage of impurities of the lifestream as recorded and graphed over the same time interval. In layman's terms, this is a graph of the presence of Jenova in the lifestream."  
  
The black line on the clear sheet suddenly seemed murderous, shifting and ready to strike, like a snake poised to bite.  
  
"As you can see, the readings indicate a normal level of Jenova in the lifestream...until the Cetra's collective memory incident. After that, she's begun to drop off, reaching a lower concentration in the lifestream than we've recorded for nearly two years."  
  
The graph was easy enough to decipher, even without the doctor's explanation. The two lines almost moved in sync, leveling and then dropping off in near unison. It was inexplicable and disturbing.  
  
Tabitha paused, as if to consider whether or not to continue, and then sighed, her decision apparently made.  
  
"Normally, we'd except a decrease in Jenova to be marked by an upsurgence of lifestream, or an increase in Jenova to be marked by a decrease of lifestream. The fact that they both decrease is unlike anything we've ever seen. Either they're both in some sort of harm, the cause of which I cannot explain, or they're both deliberately pulling back their forces from the front. A détente or sorts, if you would, except they're hiding their bombs instead of destroying them, I'm sure."  
  
Scarlet spoke up, the woman's mind racing across strategies and counter-strategies, vulnerable spots in their defense, places where they could be hurt.  
  
"Pulling back their forces for what?"  
  
Tabitha rubbed the bridge of her nose, between her eyes. "At this point, I can only speculate. I'm going to take my readings and my speculations to Cloud after this meeting is over, but /I/ believe that Jenova is mustering an attack, and the lifestream is marshalling its forces in order to fight her."  
  
Scarlet nodded imperceptibly, as if she'd thought as much. "Do you have anything to back this up, Doctor?"  
  
"Jenova drops off first, doesn't she?" Reeve had been quietly staring at the graph at its insidious overlay, and he spoke now, startling them both.  
  
"Yes. She does. She drops her presence first, and the lifestream follows quickly after. There's a time delay of approximately sixteen minutes between the two drops."  
  
Reeve lowered his eyes, as if in pain. In truth, it was pain, a different kind of pain. Nobody...nobody in this war got anything that resembled rest, and none of them ever would.  
  
He knew it, he'd known it for a long time, but even old truths hurt sometimes.  
  
"She's pulling back first. She's pulling back, and pooling her power, and she's going to attack."  
  
Tabitha nodded. "That's what I believe, at any rate. Why now, is the question? She had to be hurting after the lifestream flared up briefly during Cloud's little trip, but for her to pull back so suddenly and gather her forces...why now?"  
  
"Sephiroth." Scarlet's voice rang out into the calm that followed Tabitha's question.  
  
"Sephiroth? What does he have to do with it?" Reeve queried, trying to keep a petulant tone from coloring his voice.  
  
//I can't afford not to understand anything, and right now I don't understand everything!//  
  
A hint of a brilliant, almost maniacal, gleam appeared in Scarlet's eyes. It was something familiar but nearly forgotten, something Reeve hadn't seen in a long time, since before the battle at Junon.  
  
It was altogether surprising but somehow comforting; reaffirmation of the fact that while Scarlet may have bent, she wasn't anything close to broken.  
  
"I don't know how Jenova thinks. But I know Hojo, and Hojo's always been obsessed with one thing. Sephiroth. And I think Jenova's always been obsessed with him too."  
  
"But to risk so much on a full frontal assault on us...it doesn't make any sense, especially considering the fact that we have the past Zack and Sephiroth here, who I'm sure will fight if it comes down to it."  
  
The gleam in Scarlet's eye only strengthened at Tabitha's protest, and Reeve almost expected her to laugh out loud, high and sharp.  
  
"So you think she's sensed them two! So glad to have everyone's agreement."  
  
Reeve realized that he was starting to understand what Scarlet was thinking, and the fact that he was starting to comprehend how Scarlet thought was frightening enough, let alone the actual conjectures such understanding brought.  
  
"You think she's coming here for the past Sephiroth."  
  
Scarlet nodded slightly. "Yes and no. I think that she's been planning to come here all along, but the fact that Cloud has brought back Sephiroth has only made her want to come here now. If you think about it, who's stronger, Cloud or Sephiroth?" Scarlet looked to Reeve.  
  
"I'm not sure...I mean, yes, Cloud defeated Sephiroth, but he wasn't really him when we fought him during Meteor. They've sparred, I know, but I don't think they've really gone against each other. They were very close, after all."  
  
Scarlet overrode that last comment, but then again, now one talked about Cloud and Sephiroth's relationship, although whether out of embarrassment or for Cloud's sake Reeve was never quite sure.  
  
"But still, I've always wondered, why didn't Jenova go for Cloud? She'd probably consider Cloud to be stronger, which is a fair enough thought, and Cloud's done her far more wrong than Sephiroth. She had every reason to take Cloud, but instead she takes Sephiroth. I'm not buying that crap Cloud told us about 'Sephiroth was too close'. She took him because she's obsessed, as crazed over him as Hojo is. And she's going to come now to get this Sephiroth, because she's that fucked up. The question is, can she? Doctor?"  
  
Tabitha tensed slightly, as if Scarlet had surprised her with her sudden attention. "Can she? Honestly, no. She takes active possession of the body, after all, and she can't do that with two people. Her attention would be split between two people and they would be able to break free."  
  
//Thank god for that.// Of course, Reeve had only started to relax when Tabitha added a side note:  
  
"At least, I think so."  
  
"Wait, you don't know?"  
  
"Scarlet, Jenova is a foreign entity. She's not human, and doesn't function like a human in any way. Everything I know about her is either scraped from Gast and Hojo's notes or pure conjecture - and if you want some hellish fun, try deciphering the 'good doctor's' notes. He's not only mad, he's close to illiterate, I swear...Anyway, the labs can't give me much concrete data, so I don't have a lot to go on. But considering the number of times that Cloud has gone into the field and yet has not been possessed, it's fairly safe to assume that she is incapable of possessing two people at once. Then again, it's also fairly safe to assume she's incapable of possessing anyone but Sephiroth, although I very highly doubt it. Hojo did much of the same to the both of them."  
  
Reeve sighed. "So he's as safe as he can be."  
  
"He's dangerous, Reeve. He's as safe as he's going to be, know that he knows the truth, and if he does go mad, his skills, while great, are still something Cloud can defeat. He doesn't have this war to sharpen him like the other Sephiroth has."  
  
Scarlet shook her head, worry and thought narrowing her eyes. "Don't write off Sephiroth. None of us has ever seen him go all out. I think Jenova restricted him during Meteor, and I think she probably does the same now."  
  
"Still, Scarlet, it doesn't change the fact that they're unknowns, variables we can hardly afford. We should prepare for what will likely be an assault, and will likely come soon, but we should watch them as well."  
  
Slumping back in his chair, Reeve sighed. "We'll do what we have to. It's all we can do."  
  
----  
  
If Reno had his way, he'd take a gun to this new Sephiroth's head, and damn the consequences.  
  
It wasn't personal dislike, not by any means. He'd known Sephiroth well enough during his days at Shinra, and the man had been cold and distant, but polite enough, even if the politeness masked a sense of barely constrained power and fury.  
  
Sephiroth had always felt angry then, so tightly wound that Reno wondered if he ever took the damned stick out of his ass. But beneath the tight control, there'd always been a sense of anger, rage at the world and himself.  
  
Sephiroth had always had something to prove to the world, and Reno had always found it funny that the man had thought he hid it so well from everyone.  
  
//Fucking hilarious, actually. The anal ones always think they're so good at hiding /everything/.//  
  
Then again, everything was hilarious when you were as drunk as Reno had been when he'd first realized this, drunk enough to consider going up to Sephiroth and asking if he just shoved the damned Masamune up his ass and decided to hell with the stick.  
  
He was almost tempted to ask the question to the man who walked in front of them now, all cold rage and masked fury.  
  
//And still possessing a giant stick shoved so far up his...//  
  
It was a strange sort of juxtaposition, how different the Sephiroth that Reno had known during the war was from this Sephiroth, still so cold, but somehow weaker for it. Younger, and more fragile. Sephiroth had changed so much that it was almost unnerving. They'd picked Zackery up on the way down to one of the main training areas, where Strife was likely waiting with the boss and probably with Zack, if only because Zack seemed to be wherever Cloud was, these days.  
  
It was unnerving to see just how much Zack /hadn't/ changed. Oh sure, there were subtle differences - the Zack Reno knew was colder, stronger, and there was something harsher in his eyes, but underneath the thin veneer was something that was still essentially, intrinsically Zack.  
  
The past Zack had suspicion in his eyes, and a wary way of walking, but he was still very much like the Zack that Reno knew.  
  
Zack had gone through a lot; Reno knew he had no real idea of what those five years with Hojo had been like, or what the SOLDIER had suffered afterward, being dead and coming back and fighting so long in the war, but somehow he was still just as much Zack as this past incarnation.  
  
Maybe some people didn't have to change. It was almost disturbing to think that could be true.  
  
Sephiroth even /walked/ differently. The past moved through the hallways of Shinra with a blind and utterly stupid confidence that the present Sephiroth had been too experienced to allow.  
  
//Still thinks he's untouchable...I wonder if anyone's told him how susceptible he is to the 'lower' emotions...//  
  
He doubted somehow that the lovely little file the higher-ups and the Doc had decided to bestow upon Sephiroth had included the details of his future (and at this point past, depending on how you looked at it) relationship with Strife.  
  
Reno would love to be the one to tell him, just to see the expression he'd come up with. Although, if this Sephiroth was any good he'd be able to hide it fairly well, but there was always hope, after all. Everyone had to have hope.  
  
Still, if he did do that, there was a great chance that Zack would try very hard to beat the living daylights out of him. Probably claim he was inflicting 'emotional trauma on Cloud's wounded mind.' As Doc had told him once. Reno figured that was her way of telling him to shut up before he made Strife go psycho on them.  
  
Strife hadn't done it yet, but sometimes Reno couldn't help but wonder how he'd resisted for so long.  
  
//By the planet, /I/ feel like going AWOL half the time.//  
  
A part of Reno wanted to assert that Strife must be made of stronger stuff, but the practical (or as Rude and Elena called it, his asshole side) assured him that Strife was simply too damned stubborn to break.  
  
Reno was stubborn, but he knew he had a different breed of obstinate running through him. Strife was like a wall of stone, or ice. Reno liked to think of himself as a more flexible kind of stubborn - like water, rushing through with speed and power.  
  
Subtle and tenancious. And suave at the same time. Because he was just /that/ good.  
  
Right.  
  
They'd reached the training halls, large rooms of padded mats that always, no matter how many times the cleaning crew came in, smelled of sweat and exhaustion. They were large complexes, newly rebuilt after they'd been partially destroyed in Meteor. Reno remembered from before Meteor, and either they'd had the same architect or they'd been sharing notes, because the new version was almost exactly the same as the old one.  
  
Sephiroth glanced about briefly, and then the rigid set of his shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly. Clearly, to him, this was the first familiar setting he'd been in since he got here.  
  
//Well, the lab sure would have been familiar, but somehow I doubt that would have relaxed him...//  
  
At the far end of the brightly lit space, Strife stood with the boss, talking to each other. Their voices were low and casual; they did not carry across the distance. Next to them stood Zack, so much like the one walking in front of him, beside Sephiroth that it was like double vision. Beside Zack stood Aeris, and Reno froze up for a second at seeing the Cetra there.  
  
They hadn't seen Aeris, neither of them, and Zack would recognize her instantly, and Sephiroth would as well. Though, Reno wasn't sure if he knew her as Zack's girlfriend or the Cetra he'd killed during Meteor.  
  
There was an awkward conversation if he'd ever seen one. There was no more time to reflect, as they'd already approached the group.  
  
"Boss." Reno threw Vincent a small half-salute in greeting. The dark clad man nodded in greeting, first at him, then at Elena and Rude. Elena gave him a more complete salute in reply, while Rude merely nodded in return. Elena always had more respect of authority than the two older Turks, and although she'd never developed her a hero worship for Valentine that rivaled the one she'd had for Tseng, she still respected the man a great deal.  
  
Not that Reno didn't; he was 'The Boss' after all, and a damned good gunman. Either him or Rude would follow Valentine to the Crater itself if he told them to - because he was a Turk as well, and bonds like that ran thicker than blood.  
  
"I hope the trip down was a simple matter?" Vincent's voice was always a surprise to Reno somehow, despite the years he'd know and worked with the man. He supposed it was because the man spoke so little, but a part of him felt that it was what you could sense in Valentine's voice - the constant and dark emotions.  
  
"No problems here, Boss."  
  
Valentine's eyes flickered briefly to Zackery, who was staring at Aeris as if she was a ghost. Actually, everyone was staring at the two of them, and Zack moved slightly closer to the Cetra, as if in warning.  
  
Something slightly like pain, but more like loneliness flickered through Zackery's eyes. He knew that this wasn't his Aeris, Reno was sure, but still, it must have hurt to have been reminded that the people you knew and cared about weren't /your/ people.  
  
Aeris smiled at him, something open and warm that felt like home to anyone who saw it, and said nothing at all.  
  
"Where is Masamune?"  
  
Trust Sephiroth to break that tender moment. Reality rushed back in, and the haze that Reno tended to associate with the Cetra was swept away. Zack choked out something between a snort and a laugh.  
  
"Oh, so sorry we forgot to leave those out for you. My mistake."  
  
Sephiroth bristled, and Reno tried to keep from laughing.  
  
"Should we go looking for them?" Everyone froze, both at the proposal, and what it entailed, and at the fact that Zackery, not Sephiroth, had said it. Zack's grey gaze locked onto that of his future self, measuring.  
  
Incredibly, Zack smiled under those eyes, and pulled the sword he'd been practicing with off his back, a mass of dark metal: the buster sword. Flipping the blade deftly, he presented the hilt to Zackery, and cautiously the man accepted, wary of the gift.  
  
//He's not the only one who'd wary...// Reno let his hand creep toward his gun, and out of the corners of his eyes he saw Rude and Elena do the same. Cloud was a little less subtle, raising his hand to let it rest along the hilt of his sword, the translucent Ultima Weapon.  
  
And Zack continued to smile, a wide and fierce grin, as if the situation was more amusing than anything in the world.  
  
"Don't bother. You can take mine...you'll just have to beat Spike here to keep it."  
  
Reno let a smile creep onto his own face at Strife's startled squawk as Zack pushed him away from the group, onto the training mats, and Zackery, face resolute, followed.  
  
----  
  
The fight was won as soon as Cloud evaded Zackery's first attack with blinding speed and a grace that made it look easy. After that, Sephiroth knew that his friend couldn't beat Cloud, and he was sure that Zackery and Cloud knew it as well. Something lighthearted appeared in both the fighters then, and outcome determined, they both seemed to resign themselves to having fun.  
  
Sephiroth tried to keep track of how everyone else was reacting to this fight, but he soon found himself far too deeply engrossed in just watching Cloud move, all the potential he remembered in the boy, and more, so much more.  
  
It would have been less amazing if he'd seen it happen gradually, a slow buildup of speed and skill that accrued over time. And even then, there was still what Hojo had done to consider, and what the war had done, uncountable experiences that had shaped Cloud into the fighter he was now.  
  
Sephiroth knew Zack. As the only SOLDIER capable of giving him a good fight, Zack had become his sparring partner first and his second in command, well, second. The long experience with the man had given him a deep understanding of how well Zack fought. Zackery was a brilliant fighter, quick to improvise and use the opponents weakness against him. He'd done so against Sephiroth more than once.  
  
And Cloud moved against him with all the strength and skill of someone who had no equal. The blond moved so quickly and effortlessly it was as if he didn't even feel the massive weight of the shimmering, nearly translucent sword he carried.  
  
Watching Cloud fight was incredible, because all the weight and sorrow that the man carried appeared to drop away, and Sephiroth could see the boy he knew, the person he'd cared about, in this stoic stranger.  
  
And unbelievably, Cloud was /smiling/, a half smile, slight and almost shy that quirked up the corners of his mouth as he fought, well, less fought and more resoundingly /thrashed/, Zackery.  
  
He'd seen Cloud smile that way before, when all of them were together and Zackery had just done something exceptionally stupid. It almost hurt to see it now, because he remembered then how different things were now, how bleak and bizarre this future.  
  
But still, more than anything else, it reminded him that yes, this was Cloud.  
  
----  
  
Zack couldn't help but feel a swell of pride in his chest at the sight of Cloud, winning this mock fight with the past Zackery without really trying. He'd initiated this knowing Cloud would easily win, and knowing that would show his past self and Sephiroth that they had changed more than they could or would want to believe.  
  
//Spike's done more than any of us thought he could...he's gone further than anyone else...//  
  
Of all of them, all the elite fighters of Avalanche and Shinra, only a few could go head to head with Spike and even begin to hold their own.  
  
//Of course, Seph could, especially this twisted shell that's him now...//  
  
It had happened only once, about seven months ago, almost three months after Seph had been taken. It wasn't a major battle, just a skirmish outside of Rocket Town, but /he'd/ been there, and...and...  
  
//And they fought, Cloud had to fight him again, again, after all he's done, and he wouldn't talk to anyone after it was over, not wounded bad but so hurt, and god his eyes were so /empty/.//  
  
The image of Cloud: wet and shivering, his uniform soaked with rain and mud and blood, knees drawn up to his chest and a horrible hollowness in his glowing blue eyes had stayed with Zack, haunting his dreams for many nights.  
  
//Cloud /knows/, but he's never really processed that Seph's not Seph anymore, and now there's this past Seph who-//  
  
- Who was staring at Cloud far too intently than was healthy. Like someone who just realized that yes, Cloud had really grown up, and damn, he's grown up fine, war scars and trauma and all, hasn't he?  
  
And the problem was, Seph wouldn't even know how selfish he was being, how much damage he could do.  
  
//Oh, /fuck/.//  
  
---- ---- Author's notes - ----  
  
- I apologize for Jenova. She's very incoherent, and rambles horribly. Also, talk about the worst parent ever. Milk and cookies and random bodily possession.  
  
- Apologize for any mistakes, but my brain wanted to get it out and over with. So, sorry in advance.  
  
- I'm sorry that Tabitha becomes Ms. Plot Exposition sometimes. She's so much more lucid than everyone else, so she gets the job.  
  
- About a hundred pages and seven chapters in and I finally introduce the innuendo. My speed is just staggering. 


	8. Chapter 8

All usual disclaimers applicable.  
  
----  
  
Xehorista Tora  
  
----  
  
Chapter Eight  
  
----  
  
"Beautiful. When I die, all I will be is foam on the waves...No. Even less than that now."  
  
- Hellboy  
  
----  
  
They came from the sea.  
  
The sky above the sea was covered in patchy clouds, dark thunderheads that grew quickly with the promise of storm. The moon's light slipped in through the gaps in the clouds, the pale glow lighting up the world beneath it. White sand stretched out in a shallow curve that met water the color of night. Water that looked like oil, viscous and abnormal, leached into the sand of the beach.  
  
The beach north of Midgar had been seen many things. It had been there when Jenova fell from the heavens like a terrible, dying star, and her impact had rocked the world. It had been there when the last of the Cetra departed, and all the Planet grieved and shuddered, a sob given by the land and the sea to mark their passing. And it had felt when Diamond WEAPON had risen from the sea and died on it shores, the instrument of the Planet slain by a group of fighters who would later be everything's saviors.  
  
The Planet remembered the steps and touch of those who walked upon it. Diamond WEAPON had held all the force and majesty of the lifestream, and it had been a welcome, if heavy weight.  
  
But the things that came from the sea now, and stepped upon the beach's shores left footprints that stung like acid, imprints that the sea tried and failed to wash away, that the beach tried and failed to forget. Perversions of nature, dark and malicious creatures that arose from the water and landed from the sky, blotting out the stars with their dark wings, unnatural wings that were constructs of bones and rotting flesh.  
  
They were large, and their weight sunk into the sand, bit and tore at it with harsh claws. There was no end to it, no comprehension of the awful wrong that existed in them.  
  
It was something as eternal and endless as the sea, but maligned in a way that the dark depths of the oceans were not. A malevolent, mindless mass of madness.  
  
And one of them, one creature that sat astride the monstrous winged beasts, human but not human, with silver hair that drank in the light from the moon, commanded them all, speaking to them in their own tongues, awful words never meant to be made by men.  
  
----  
  
It would have been a stretch and more to say that Aeris was happy with the current situation.  
  
Actually, it had to be one of the worst situations that she'd ever been in. The air was thick with hostility and restrained emotion, and it felt like the fight had only heightened what had previously been there. Zackery's breathing was returning to normal after the exertion of the fight, and she could feel the weight of his eyes on her.  
  
He understood that she wasn't his Aeris, but he didn't truly realize it. She wondered if he'd seen the file they'd doubtless shown to Sephiroth. If he knew how she died.  
  
She didn't doubt it. It made sense, to inform Zackery of everything they'd shown Sephiroth, but even then she couldn't be sure how complete that information was, likely more patchwork than anything else. Shinra's ability to include and conceal what the company wished to was something that Reeve had not been able to kill when he took control. Or perhaps, he didn't even want to.  
  
Some silences were companionable, this one was nothing but uncomfortable; something strained and stretched into the air between the members of the group. Reno's eyes flicked around between the various members before the Turk cleared his throat.  
  
"Well. Someone just got their ass handed to them, didn't they?"  
  
The flower girl was barely able to contain her laughter; Elena wasn't nearly so lucky and broke out snickering, and a bare smile stretched across both Vincent and Rude's faces, which was nearly as surprising as the fact that Zack - both Zacks - had added a deeper counterpart to Elena's laughter.  
  
"Yeah, I suppose I did. Here." And he handed the buster sword back to Zack, who took it with a grateful nod and gracefully sheathed it. She wasn't entirely sure how he was able to do that without taking anyone's head off, but he somehow managed. He always did.  
  
"I always knew you'd get good, Spike. Never thought you'd get quite /this/ good, but...well, I never thought I get sucked up by some giant green vacuum years into the future either, so obviously my judgment skills are shot."  
  
Like dawn breaking through cloudy skies, a smile crept onto the blond's face. It was sad how out of place it looked. Of all of them, Aeris thought, Cloud deserved to be able to smile.  
  
And of all of them, Cloud was the one who couldn't. There was too much binding him, too many chains holding all of them down. Sephiroth and Nibelheim; people and places, and Jenova; something that couldn't fall under any category.  
  
It hit her then, sudden and unexpected, and she had no way to counter it. She'd barely thought the name when the voices rose in her head, a blinding cacophony that drowned out all else. It felt like fire and ash and brimstone, and it seared her mind, a burning noise growing in her head; a blind, mad, rush of fury and noise, and she cried out in pain, falling to her knees, only dimly aware that Sephiroth had collapsed, boneless and limp as a corpse, to the floor.  
  
----  
  
Nibelheim was burning, the flames licking the buildings, surmounting higher and higher as voices screamed in Sephiroth's head.  
  
//You have to see! You have to /understand/!//  
  
Burning, and he could feel the heat this time, the awful certainty of it. This was someone's home, this was Cloud's home, and it was burning and it was his fault. He felt a deep and horrible feeling come over him, making his stomach clench and racking his muscles with small tremors. Guilt. He was responsible, and the guilt and weight of that responsibility settled onto him, irrevocable.  
  
//I didn't bring you here so you could wallow in your own fucking guilt! You have to understand!//  
  
The voice ripped at him, a voice that was speaking in a tone too panicked and fast than was normal for it. Because, somehow, he realized what normal for that voice was, because it was familiar, and known.  
  
The winds howled, the flames roared and two hands gripped him by his shoulders and whipped him around, so quickly that he was facing the man before he'd even realized that he'd begun to move.  
  
And once he saw the man before him, met tired eyes that were level with his own and /realized/, Sephiroth was too shocked to move at all.  
  
Green eyes held his, shining with a frantic light that was not all because of the reflections of the flames. The man's form, as tall as he was, was clad in tattered black leather, clothes that had seen many battles. And behind him sliver hair waved in the wind from the burning buildings, hair matted and dull, a strange and sick parody of Sephiroth's own brilliant strands.  
  
"You're..."  
  
The man didn't nod, but something in his eyes changed, as a shadow of an old pride that Sephiroth knew far too well filled them. As if he was aware of his scrutiny, aware how run down and..and /haunted/ he must look.  
  
"..me."  
  
And by the Planet, his eyes were so /tired/, so shadowed, filled with so many ghosts. He'd seen that in their eyes, in Zack's and in Cloud's, but something darker skirted at the edges of this version of himself, something that spoke of untold horrors.  
  
Dark lies and darker secrets, whispering voices in the dark and the soft sound of pages in a library that smelled of age and madness. He heard it then, in his head, a voice he knew to be his own, and a memory of the man before him.  
  
//"An organism that was apparently dead was found in a 2000 year old geological stratum. Professor Gast named the organism Jenova."//  
  
There were very few times in his life where Sephiroth had found himself incapable of speech, of brilliant replies and cutting remarks. But now, as images and /memory/ pressed in, he could find nothing to say.  
  
//Zack's voice cried out at him, anger and disbelief rampant in it, and he heard his own reply, cold and dead. "Traitor. Get out of my way. I'm going to see my mother." And then they were in the reactor, and Zack's body flew backward from the force of his strike, bounced once as it impacted the wall, and was still.//  
  
//"Mom...Tifa...my town...give it back. Give it back!" Dull silver at the edge of his vision and blinding pain. Cloud voice, choked with tears.//  
  
// "Cloud...kill Sephiroth." Zack, so weak he could barely choke out words that reached Sephiroth as he stumbled out of the room, uncaring and untouched. And Cloud looked at him, and there was blood pooling about a hole in his chest; the Masamune was in Cloud's chest. He had put it there, and the pain did not fade from the blond's eyes, but determination crowded in as his hands grasped the blade of the sword, and, blood running down his wrists, he began to lift the sword.//  
  
//The corridors of Shinra headquarters were tinged red with blood, and his vision was off, as if he was watching a bad film recording. He cut down yet another guard, another employee: a woman this time, who had time to scream once, high and shrill and utterly terrified before his sword swept down. She was dead before she hit the floor.//  
  
//Nibelheim, a ghost of a town and a town of ghosts. The library smelled of old memories and secrets as his hand traced across familiar books and remembered watching them all burn.//  
  
//Another time, another woman, in city of light and glass. A holy place, and the woman was praying. He did not belong here, but he swept down like some great and terrible angel, his sword sliding softly through the woman's - Aeris, he realized with a start - flesh. She made no sound as she died and fell forward into Cloud's arms, but Cloud cried out, just once, a sound wrung from his throat by grief and rage. It did not sound human, and when his eyes looked at him, they did not recognize him.//  
  
//Green and white that soothed and burned; the center of the Planet. He was there, and Cloud was there, old and strong and so sad. His eyes spoke of memories that cut through him and he leapt up in the final strike of the Omnislash, light gathering around the tip of the sword with all the brilliance of a falling star. He looked up into that light and finally, finally felt his mind clear. Blessedly sane and /alone/ at last, he watched the star descend and saw nothing else.//  
  
Then, it was over, and Sephiroth felt the awful weight of the memories of things he had yet to do press into him. He'd killed many people, destroyed families and lives and /nations/, but he'd never felt anything that approached this all feeling that pushed at him. It felt as though his ribs were broken, and his heart crushed within his chest. He couldn't breathe, and he knew then that this was not a dream.  
  
"You have to understand." It was strange, hearing his own voice, especially softened by what might have been pity.  
  
"I don't..." He wasn't exactly sure how that sentence ended. I don't understand, I don't know, I don't /want/ to know, I don't want to feel guilty for something I haven't even done yet.  
  
//But you will. If all this had not happened, if Cloud hadn't come back to the past to stop that thing.you would have.// Thoughts and doubt hissed at him like a snake.  
  
"It's not a perfect connection. I don't think that Zack could do it, with his other self. But there's a part of me that isn't her, and the mako runs so strongly in us both. Voices of the planet, singing and sighing and screaming..." His voice trailed off, sing-song and dancing on the borders of something dark and mad.  
  
"Her?" A part of him already knew the answer, felt the truth from the memories of things he hadn't done yet pressing against him, but he wanted to hear him say it.  
  
Somehow, that would make it real.  
  
"She came from the sky. A calamity from the skies, and she was death to the planet. And then they stopped her, but then men ventured where they shouldn't have, and she came back." The green eyes appeared to unfocus for a minute, looking at something far away, a distant horizon.  
  
"Jenova. You were raised to think of her as mother."  
  
And he knew this, he knew he knew this, but somehow he didn't. It was as if his mind and body were disconnected, and his body reacted independently of his thoughts.  
  
//"My mother's name was Jenova. As for my father..what does it matter?"//  
  
"Jenova is my mother? Who..." The other him waited, watching him with a patient, almost bemused expression in his eyes. "...my father?"  
  
"Haven't recalled everything yet, have you? Recalled. Precalled, more accurately, since you can't recall things you haven't done. I've done them, though, haven't I?"  
  
They had said that he had been mad during Meteor. Sephiroth remembered madness, the cold clammy touch of it. He wondered it still held the future him in its grip.  
  
"Don't worry about your father. And I'm not mad, I'm just tired. And it's so hard to think with her here."  
  
His eyes widened in shock, and he sputtered out: "What?!" More like exclaimed, actually. Sephiroth, even now, did not have it in him to sputter.  
  
"I'm you. I know exactly the expression you just had on - the 'I wish they would send someone else to talk to the soldiers who have lost it after a battle.' And I have been through many battles. I am /not/ crazy. I'm tired, and I'm sick of having to spell things out for you. We're running out of time."  
  
Was he really this infuriating? Zack and Cloud, how did they ever stand him? He'd been in his presence for no longer than a few minutes, and he could barely stand himself. Obviously, his companions had a greater depth of tolerance than he did, but Sephiroth knew he was not one to suffer fools and egoists lightly.  
  
He was fairly sure he fell into the latter of the two categories, although nothing was ever certain in life. Maybe he really was an enormous idiot, and no one had bothered to tell him. Stranger things had happened; were happening.  
  
"Running out of time for what?"  
  
Strange, that he hadn't known he could sound so...plaintive, for lack of a better word. Or that he could look quite so exasperated, as if his other self was trying to restrain himself from doing something he would regret later.  
  
"Running out of time, because Jenova's armies are at Midgar's doorstep. And considering how many scouts they killed on the way, and the route they took, you won't have any warning until it's too late. The battle is here, and now, and you /will die/ and whatever the Cetra is trying to accomplish will be useless unless you do something about it." His future self's voice was flat and uncompromising, laying out the facts as they were, cold and true.  
  
"Do you want me to draw you a diagram?" A mocking hint glittered in his eyes. "They will strike first from the north...they came in from the sea, and some from the sky. They will use as strange sort of stealth, using the mass of monsters to disguise those that will sneak into the slums and tunnels to infiltrate the city. They will try to hold the sky as well...dark wings under dark clouds...the cries of the storm."  
  
//And there he goes. There I go. Whichever.//  
  
"Numbers?" If he was going to have to put up with a conversation with himself when he wasn't entirely sure that one or both participants were entirely sane, he may as well get something worthwhile out of it.  
  
" A mass. Thousands, at least. Ten of thousands, maybe more. They are a mass, and she will direct them all through me, and they will be legion."  
  
"You're coming?"  
  
His other self gave him a look that spoke volumes of scorn. "No, Hojo's leading the assault wearing a bright pink uniform. Have you listened to me at all? Of course I'm leading the attack. She's leading the attack through me."  
  
"I don't remember being so inclined toward humor."  
  
The older him rolled his eyes, something Sephiroth couldn't remember ever really doing either. "You spend so much time in a dark corner of your mind and see if you don't develop a bit of Zack."  
  
"That's an unusual coping mechanism."  
  
"Shut up." The man spat at him. "Don't you understand? The battle's coming to Midgar. Fighting in a densely populated city - the casualties could be enormous. And she's coming. She's going to make me...She'll make me hurt him."  
  
There was never a doubt in Sephiroth's mind who 'him' was, and he bit back the stirrings of some strange jealously. There were no words for how crazy it would be, to feel jealous at anything this sad shadow of himself had.  
  
Something must have shown in his face, because the green of the man's eyes hardened, and they looked like cold stones in the light from the fires of the town.  
  
"Don't even think it. I know how selfish you are, how selfish I am. But don't even think it. You've gotten the memories of what I did, what you /will do/. Those alone should let you know how much that will hurt him."  
  
Sephiroth bristled at the order, even coming from himself. He managed to keep a snarl out of his voice, although he wasn't quite sure how, as he shot back: "You've already hurt him more than I ever could. So don't worry about anything on that front. Your claim is quite clear."  
  
"You don't have time for this."  
  
He let a smile show, enjoying how the irritation crept into the face of his other self. "Just making a point."  
  
It was only in hindsight that Sephiroth realized that that was the moment when he'd crossed the line. Obviously, his future self was not him, and the territory of how far was too far was cut with different boundaries. As it was, he'd barely registered that his future self had begun to move before the motion was completed and he found his throat encased in a grip stronger than steel.  
  
"Don't." The word was ice to the fire around them, spoken so flatly, but with so much emotion within it that it was terrifying. One word, and all the warning within it he needed to give.  
  
"Go back now. And try not to get everyone killed." And the man was right; he did sound tired, deathly so. The flames of Nibelheim roared up, but Sephiroth felt nothing but the darkness that overtook him.  
  
----  
  
He'd been worried when Sephiroth collapsed, and he'd been terrified when Aeris followed suit. Rushing over to her, Zack vaguely recognized the reactions of the others in the room: Vincent motioned to the Turks, who immediately spread out to circle the group, weapons drawn; his past counterpart had moved to Sephiroth's side, and so had Cloud, a fact that was somehow disturbing. If he weren't quite so occupied, Zack would worry about it more fully.  
  
"Aeris? Come on, Aeris, don't do this." He shook her slightly, and her head fell to the side with the limp motions of a dead thing. Her pulse was a strong staccato underneath his fingers, but Zack had seen his share and more of death. More often than not they burned the corpses after a battle, but sometimes they were able to collect the dead, to bury and mourn, and privately, Zack thought that that was worse. The smell of the burning was horrible, but the boneless motions of the ranks of corpses was worse.  
  
Aeris had that look, that dead look, and it petrified him. So many dead, and he couldn't remember faces, but it took so little effort to make those memories the bodies of people he cared about.  
  
"Aeris?" She stirred, the faint and feeble motions of a wounded animal, something small and scared, before her eyes opened, the green glassy and unfocused.  
  
"Hey. Come on, Aeris. Just follow the Zack-hand. It's not a bad hand to look at, after all, although the glove could use some work." Maybe it was the babble, or the presence of his frantically waving hand, but Aeris's eyes focused on his own. The look in them was panicked, terrified.  
  
"Aeris?" Zack heard the concern in his voice and tried not to wince. He really was spread thin, worrying about too many people, caring about too many people.  
  
//Not like I'd have it any other way.//  
  
That was true, he knew. Sephiroth was formed of duty, and Cloud had selfless, self-sacrificing tendencies that made him wonder if the boy was trying to kill him, and Zack cared.  
  
"So loud, and so /many/. Zack, they were so scared, and the Planet was so loud, and so angry. Terrified and hurt in its rage, so /strong/."  
  
"I thought you didn't hear it that much, anymore."  
  
"Only sometimes. When it's hurting, or when she's there." Her hands were spread out against the fabric of her dress like the pale skeletons of birds, and her gaze left his, unfocused again, to wander over to Cloud. "Is Sephiroth alright?"  
  
There was a thought, and the worry he'd held back with worry for Aeris sprang to life. "I don't know, I don't see why the idiot would collapse in the first place. Why did you, anyway? What did they have to say that was so important?"  
  
She held a hand to her temple and shook her head slightly. "I don't know. It's like hearing a thousand voices at once, all screaming for attention. I can't puzzle them out yet, just the sense of urgency, and terror."  
  
And that was never really a good thing, you know, the planet crying out in fear and anger. Great. Just great. Just like the fact that Cloud was crouched down by Sephiroth, supporting him as the white-haired man struggled back into awareness.  
  
//If he knew what he was doing, he'd probably stop, but everyone's so worried, and everything's moving so fast.//  
  
Cloud wasn't naïve, not after all he had been through, but in some areas of the world he still didn't have a clue, Zack reflected as he strode over to the group of three.  
  
Strange, but if he didn't look to closely, or think about it too much, it could almost be the three of them years ago, during the war, still fighting and struggling and watching men die, but happier nonetheless.  
  
"Spike. How is he?" Cloud looked up on his approach, eyes the murky blue of troubled waters.  
  
"He's coming to now." Glancing down and back up at Zack, something obviously clicked in the blond's mind, because he immediately began to struggle to his feet, trying to draw his composure about him the remnants of a tattered cloak, his movements as skittish as those of a new born chocobo.  
  
And then Sephiroth's gloved hand grabbed his arm, and he stopped. Froze, and Zack could barely see him breathe.  
  
The white-haired man's voice was as confused as the look in his eyes, the green cloudy enough that they looked more like Aeris's eyes than anything else.  
  
"They're coming."  
  
And obviously, today was the day of cryptic messages from fainting people, and no one had bothered to send Zack the memo.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Legion." His eyes focused, and he spat out the word like the worst of curses.  
  
"Legion. Wonderful. Because that helps. Now, can you let go of Spike and stand up, or do we need to find you a walker, Seph?" Zack spat out, and caught the quirk of a smile that Zackery sent him from the other side of Sephiroth; a secret message, congratulations on handling the man and the situation properly.  
  
"Cloud?" Vincent's voice broke into the conversation of words and gestures, and the blond glanced up, meeting his friend's red eyes.  
  
"There's a messenger here from Reeve and Scarlet. They need to see you, see all of us, and it is urgent, if the half-exhausted state of the messenger is any indication."  
  
Sometimes, Zack wished he could have the ability to say so little and make everyone listen to every word, and follow whatever he said. Although, if it meant wearing a claw and giving a demon a perpetual piggyback ride, it may not be worth it.  
  
Sighing, Zack stood up, hauling Cloud the remaining distance to his feet and letting Sephiroth struggle up alone, in silence. It was only when they'd started out down the corridor, Cloud leading, speaking with the messenger in tense, hurried tones and the Valentine and the Turks following that he spoke to Sephiroth.  
  
"Damn it. And just when I needed to talk to the resident asshole. You're really hard to get alone, you know that, Sephiroth?" Emotions flittered across the tall man's face before being carefully shuttered away, compartmentalized to deal with later.  
  
"Don't bother." His tone was as dry as old parchment. "I've probably already been told most of what you wanted to say."  
  
"I doubt it." Zack responded, because Seph was Seph, and there was very little chance that Seph would ever step back and reflect on how he was fucking up.  
  
//Whether that's because he does fuck up so little, or because it's hard to see with both his head and a stick up his ass, I fear I will never know.//  
  
"You'd be surprised. He's influenced by you, after all, and he picked up on it right away." The man moved quickly away, and Zack couldn't see his eyes or try to interpret his face, but the words alone were more than enough to put him on guard. Catching Zackery's glance, he saw a confused expression that surely echoed his own. It was disturbing, being here with his past self like this. Like constantly looking into a mirror, except no mirror looked at your girlfriend like that; if Zackery were anyone else, Zack would probably have threatened violence, but punching himself in the face looked like a stupid idea from any angle.  
  
"Seph, I'm not sure if you're trying to be funny or if you hit your head upon arriving at the floor." Zackery mused, digging one hand through his bangs. "I suppose either is likely, considering your hard, thick, blockheaded skull did hit the floor really hard."  
  
"Would you like to go for one more insult in there?" Sephiroth asked, keeping his eyes forward, on Cloud's back before them.  
  
"No, I think I'm happy with what I've got." Zackery replied, and smiled.  
  
----  
  
It wasn't the Highwind, that was for sure. The aircraft didn't fly as much as lumbered through the sky, a construction of metal that felt like it would surely give at any moment. Trying to look anywhere but the sky, Yuffie forced the contents of her stomach back down into her stomach yet once more.  
  
//I am Yuffie Kisaragi. I am the heir to the lands of Wutai, and general of the Wutai forces in this war. I fought side by side with the strongest fighters in the world. I...//  
  
A sudden gust of wind made the plane sway. As they approached Midgar, it felt like the storm was getting worse and worse.  
  
//...I will /not/ throw up.//  
  
She may have been one of the finest fighters in Wutai, keen disciple of the lands ancient arts, but she had never mastered the art of getting her stomach to listen to her brain.  
  
//Think ground. Think stable, unmoving ground. Be one with the ground. Become the ground. You are not flying. You are not moving. Groundgroundgroundground.//  
  
The plane hit a particularly bad patch of air and shuddered, and her stomach followed suit; it was only through extreme self-discipline that she managed to keep her rations of this morning where they belonged. They'd tasted bad enough going down, she didn't want to reflect on how they'd taste coming back up.  
  
"General Kisaragi? Sir?" One of the pilot's lackey's came up to her, hesitation and urgency warring in his frame.  
  
"Yeah?" Yuffie winced at her response. She tried to be dignified and regal and impressive, really she did, but then she got worried and it seemed like all that disappeared and she was sixteen again.  
  
Luckily, the man appeared not to notice, or not to care. "We're coming up on Midgar.but Sir, you've got to see this."  
  
The man motioned her to follow him as he headed toward the flight cabin, and she glared at the stiff creases in the back of his uniform as she did so.  
  
"Is this a good something I've got to see or a bad something I've got...to....see..."  
  
There really wasn't any need for the man to answer that, because the pilot's cabin wasn't that far away, and the window before them told her more than she wanted to know.  
  
At first, she'd almost thought it was some flood, but there was simply to way the ocean could creep this far south. And the water was /crawling/, and closer inspection revealed it wasn't really water at all, but a sea of monsters spread below them, moving toward Midgar. In the sky to the around them, still far off, the shapes of winged monsters cluttered the air.  
  
"Da-chao gods save us, because I think we're fucked. How many soldiers are on board?"  
  
The man stammered at bit before composing himself enough to answer. "There are the men you brought with you from Wutai, and about a dozen thirds, and half as many of the second class. Mostly SOLDIERS that were being transported from one front to another, and just layovering in Midgar."  
  
Not enough. Not nearly enough if they were attacked by the forces up there.  
  
"Call Highwind and tell him Midgar is in immediate need of aerial support. Jenova's brought out the big guns. And I want anyone able to fight here as of, oh, now. We've gotten this far because of cover from the storm, but that won't hold forever."  
  
The man ran off, shouting, as another of the young officers was fiddling furiously with a communicator, Yuffie turned to him.  
  
"Well?"  
  
"I've reached Captain Highwind, Sir, but he says the storm's keeping him grounded."  
  
//Grounded?! I'll show the old man grounded.//  
  
"Give me that." And the Wutain general snatched the microphone from the man's hand.  
  
"Cid. You better be listening, you hear me? Midgar needs backup as of yesterday."  
  
Cid's voice emerged from crackle over the speaker. "Don't give me that, brat. I know, Scarlet's already told us to prepare for something. But bitch didn't tell us when, and we don't have enough warning, not with this fucking storm keeping everyone grounded."  
  
"You not being here is not an option. Get anyone out here - Fort Condor, that pathetic excuse for a military base you have near Chocobo Ranch - /anyone/!"  
  
For moments there was only the static, and the technician reached to fiddle with the settings, obviously afraid the transmission had been cut, before Cid's voice emanated from the speaker once more.  
  
"I've already told you, the storm - "  
  
There was a time and place for dealing with Cid's whining, and this was not it. "Cid, I am on a plane. In a storm. I am two seconds away from digging my stomach out with the Conformer, before the damned thing and this damned place kill me. If don't care if it's the end of the world, I need some aerial support and I need it now, and if I don't get it, Leviathan help me, I will wait until I see you and let my motion sickness have its evil way with any upholstery on the Highwind. Is that clear?"  
  
"Brat. I'll see what I can do." The connection cut off, and the technician was staring at her with something akin to awe in his eyes.  
  
"Raise connection to Midgar; make sure they know what's coming under cover of the storm." The technician nodded and scrambled to comply, hands flying over the dials and keyboard with frantic precision.  
  
The man she'd spoken to before came into the cabin, his voice heralded by the sound of many booted footsteps. "Sir? The men are here."  
  
And they were. Personally, Yuffie never understood SOLDIERS. It was one thing to train and perfect the arts of fighting as her people did, and another thing entirely to warp and mutate your body to be able to become a more ideal fighter.  
  
It must have, she reflected, taken so much change to twist Cloud from the almost painfully shy kid that you could still see sometimes, the hints of him at the edges that the war hadn't killed yet, into the fighter, the machine that the men called the General.  
  
And no matter how much they needed him, needed them all, there was something wrong about all of it.  
  
"I'm sure that, since you all can see the window, there's no need for me to explain why I called you all up here."  
  
The men didn't nod or reply, but the determination and understanding flitted through their faces, one after another, the realization of a coming battle, like sailors before a storm.  
  
"The ship has some weapons capability, but it wasn't built for that. We're going to have to rely on ourselves here, to get us to Midgar where we can aid the forces there."  
  
Noise outside, great drums in the heavens, and she couldn't tell if it was the distant crow of lightning or the roar of some mad beast.  
  
"It's a bad situation, I won't lie to you. We're on a plane, in the middle of a storm, and we're surrounded by monsters. There's very little in this situation that is good, and very much that is bad. But that's okay. Because Hojo decided to bring the war here. Everyone here has watched towns burn, and people's lives destroyed. Some of you may even have been there when they took Bone Village. I was. And he wants to do that again, to Midgar.  
  
"But that doesn't matter. What we did or did not do in the past doesn't matter right now. Hojo's brought the fight to Midgar, and I think it's time we showed that prick what happens when he pisses us off. I want everyone ready - long range weapons and materia attacks first, and only attack the ones that notice the plane. Be ready to hit anything that comes within short range attacks, though. Two SOLDIERS - two third class - are to stay down here, with the pilots, to guard against attacks that try to take out the pilot's cabin. Everyone else, on the deck."  
  
The Conformer gleamed in the dim fluorescent lights as she raised the weapon over her head, materia glowing purple and green and red.  
  
"He wanted a fight. We're going to give him one."  
  
The cry that rang up from the SOLDIERS and from her own fighters echoed the roar of thunder and monstrous rage from outside, and try as she might, Yuffie couldn't tell which was which.  
  
----  
  
Author's notes -  
  
1. By using more game dialogue, I can think about what I write /less/. It's a clever ploy. Don't tell anyone.  
  
2. I wanted to get Sephiroth remembering everything he did right and I tried really hard and I'm still not sure how it came out, so blame him. It's all his fault.  
  
3. The quote that precedes this chapter is from Hellboy, a comic I'm fond of. I don't remember which issue, but the context is a mermaid speaking after all the souls imprisoned in the deep are set free in the form of glowing white birds. In the old fairy tales, mermaids lived for 300 years and then became sea foam when they died. Right. Shutting up now. 


	9. Chapter 9

All standard disclaimers applicable.

----

**Xehorista Tora**

----

Chapter Nine

----

"I wish for a place,

Where the earth doesn't shake,

If the earth won't be still,

Then I will."

- "Anywhere But Here", by Lisa Loeb

----

"It's not good, is it Reeve?" Cloud stood at the windows of Reeve's office and stared out into the blackness of the storm, looking for something that couldn't be seen. Beside him, Vincent stood, a dark and slender shadow.

Reeve sighed, and it took Vincent several seconds to realize how tired it sounded. "No, Cloud, it's not."

The blond shifted, reaching one hand up to run it through tangled yellow strands, wincing slightly as his gloved fingers caught in a knot. Outside, the city was a mass of dark shapes and the angles of buildings rising and falling into the night. Occasionally, the space before them was light up by the flash of lightning, and in those flashes Vincent could see a myriad of shapes against the sky.

Vincent could remember being interested in flight once, remember going to a library in Midgar and digging up a book on the mechanics of flying. He was strange even then, strong and too serious, and people gave the man in a suit a wide berth as he read. There, it had said that wings were merely modified and fused arm bones, and nothing could biologically posses wings and arms at the same time. It was a memory that stuck with him; rekindled the first time he changed into chaos and looked at this strange new-old body, before the mind of the beast took him.

Nothing human could fly. He wasn't sure if he was human anymore, and clearly the beasts flying outside like black death had never been.

They violated rules – rules of nature, rules of science. You shouldn't be able to do things like that, to become things like that, and yet he was, and Hojo was, kept existing, a stain on a world already tarnished by war and humanity's selfishness.

Dark thoughts, with a dark night to match it and the dark prospect of battle looming before them.

Behind him there was a rustle of fabric as the Turks shifted position, standing at attention (or what Reno thought passed for attention) but anxious, eager to be told what to do, what to kill. It must be an easier, almost, way to live – following orders, shedding blood on command, a simple weapon to be trained onto the enemy, a loaded gun.

If any of his Turks could hear his thoughts, especially Reno, Vincent reflected, he'd probably get an earful and more besides for writing them off so.

"...and nearly two thousand troops in reserve stationed in Midgar that we can – and have already, in fact – called up into service. Outfitting them all is the problem. Scarlet?" Reeve's voice, commanding but strained with worry, broke through Vincent's thoughts.

The blond woman had been writing the entire time, pen flying furiously over paper as she calculated the equipment and weapons she knew that they had and how they could distribute them. She paused, as if coming to a consensus, and then grimaced, the scars twisting her face into something grim and terrible, like a monster from a story created to frighten children. Knowing Scarlet, she would no doubt find it amusing that she could frighten children.

"All of the troopers and SOLDIERS have the gear that they've been issued, but that doesn't mean all that much. In terms of materia, we're dealing with resources of shit. The SOLDIERS have some of it, but almost none of the troopers were issued any at all. They're well enough equipped with guns and weapons, and I'll tell the factory here to pull anything out of storage they have."

Zack shifted his weight from foot to foot, dark mane of hair shining under the dim office light. "In other words, Scar...?"

"If the numbers are what the last report says they are we've got enough provide all the fighters with passable equipment, but little else." She reached into a pocket in her pants and pulled out a phone, flipping it open and dialing as she rose and moved away from the group to stand in the corner speaking with urgent, hushed tones.

"Most of the regular army isn't strong enough to handle materia of any power anyway. We'll distribute it to the SOLDIERS and break them apart – at least one for each unit of troops."

"How many troops and SOLDIERS are stationed here anyway, Strife?" Reno spoke up from the back, stick out and tapping against the side of one leg.

Cloud narrowed his eyes and thought for a moment before he spoke. "All told, we'll have just over seven thousand Shinra army, including the reserves. There are around an even hundred SOLDIERS currently stationed at Midgar, and about half of those are second class." From her corner, Scarlet looked over at Cloud and nodded, agreeing.

"It won't be enough."

Sephiroth's voice broke through the blond's musing and drew everyone's attention. A lesser man might have been unnerved under the sudden gazes, but, even insane and under Jenova's allure, Sephiroth had never been easily intimidated.

"What are you basing that on? Or do you just feel like being pessimistic and gloomy, because, you know, the Boss has that department down far better than you ever will." Behind him, Vincent heard Elena utter a shocked "Reno!" followed by the swift sound of her delivering a kick to his leg. That, in turn, was followed by an eruption of cursing, however muted, from the redhead. Rude, characteristically, remained silent.

Vincent raised his hand to silence Reno, the effect no doubt heightened by the fact that he chose to raise his claw, gleaming dully under the flickering office lights and flashing stormy night. "Why won't it be enough, Sephiroth?"

The white-haired man looked almost confused for a half a moment, perhaps trying to place his face amongst the many pictures he had seen in the file he had been given. Or maybe he was even comparing the half-hidden features of the man before him with any he'd known in his time at the Shinra of the past, searching for a match.

He wouldn't find one, of course, but Vincent allowed the swordsman his mental calculations, waiting for a reply. One could not spend half a century and more in a confined in a coffin with naught but the smell of decay and the weight of guilt without learning patience.

"I have only been in this time for barely more than a day, but I have experienced the several times." Sephiroth's green eyes were cloudy under the dim lights; gaze turned inward as the man chose his words carefully. "Once, when I was asleep, and when I was awake – most recently, when the Ancient and I collapsed prior to this meeting." The man paused again, uncharacteristically long for the precise general. Anything and everything he'd heard from Reno and Rude had told him that much about Sephiroth and besides, even when he'd been insane, he had been precise.

Scarlet tapped her fingers once on her folders, a soft but stern drumbeat. "We're listening. But please, feel free to keep us here all night. It's not like we have an impending invasion to stop or anything pressing to do."

Sephiroth turned to glare at her, although Reeve beat him to the verbal rebuke. The president's voice was too soft for his words to carry much sting.

"Let him talk, Scarlet. I'm sure you can contain your enthusiasm until he finishes." The woman, predictably, scoffed but quieted herself, her eyes trained on Sephiroth's face, which did not react to her gaze beyond a slight narrowing of eyes grown cold.

"I have been contacted by the version of myself native to this timeline, or rather, by the consciousness that exists under the Jenova possession. It is him, or rather, myself, who told me about the numbers and plan of the approaching force."

In the retrospect of that statement, Vincent reflected that it was just as well he did not speak often; there was really nothing anyone could say to that, and at least no one expected him to.

"In other words...you're having.../chats/....with your future self, who is currently possessed by an evil alien space bitch. Just so we're all on the same page here."

And really, why bother broaching uncomfortable subjects at all when Reno did it for everyone, and with such grace and poise?

"Thank you, Reno, for that clarification." Cloud's voice was calm and cool and contained an undertone of 'shut the hell up' that was about as quiet and discreet as a full blown Ultima casting. "Feel free to continue, Sephiroth."

"And as soon as you're done, we can discuss why you didn't feel like telling me this." The mutter rose up from the corner of the room – one of the Zacks. Vincent didn't bother concentrating enough on the speaker to discern which one; in the end, the two iterations of the man probably shared the sentiment.

"I didn't think I should bother you with the ramblings of my other self."

Zackery sighed before he spoke, and the future Zack clenched his fingers, as if itching to hit something, or someone, most likely being Sephiroth.

"For the record, for all future occasions: Bother. Me."

A brief smile flitted across the silver-haired man's face. "Duly noted, Zackery. As I was saying, while the ramblings of my other self are, for the most part, tempered by nonsensical tangents and subjective commentary, there are several important pieces of information he felt fit to include.

"Primary among these is the fact that the mass of...things – Jenova's army – will soon be here, and they are in full force. Ten of thousands – he...I...did not provide an exact military count, but they are 'legion'."

"Brilliant." This time, the sarcastic murmur emanated from Scarlet, instead of Reno. Reeve shot her a brief glare before motioning for Sephiroth to continue with a slight wave of his hand. Perhaps it was only the adrenaline and anxiety from the upcoming disaster that lent him this confidence, but it was still odd to see the president so collected. In Vincent's mind, Reeve was irrevocably fixed to the image of a large white moogle with a far too exuberant cat riding on its head and spouting random fortunes.

"They will come in from the North, from the sea and sky. Although, by this point, they are close enough that that is nearly useless information. They will also use the tunnels and sewer systems to first take the slums, then move onto the plate. I would – " Sephiroth stopped short then, and paused to consider something, and Vincent marveled at the change. The Sephiroth he was more familiar with was first tainted by madness and then by the long and draining work of being a General in a war with everything on the line. The experience, if nothing else, had made the Sephiroth of Vincent's time less prone to tangential information and more focused.

If the Sephiroth he knew had stopped talking while preparing orders, he's have thought the white-haired man was mad or worse.

After all, you've seen him mad before...

But this Sephiroth didn't play by the same rules. And when he paused, and focused his gaze inward just right, green gone cloudy with thought, then...

He looked like Lucrezia, like his mother, sitting by a window in the Shinra mansion, late in her pregnancy and swelling with child. And that look, that same look in eyes a different hue and shade as she cradled her hands about her stomach with a gentle touch and began to sing, softly, in defiance of the dust and the ghosts.

They were too much alike, and he couldn't see Hojo in the silver haired man at all. Just as well; he did not want to hate Lucrezia's son. There was a difference between fighting from hate and from necessity, and Vincent knew it well.

This Sephiroth was too different and too familiar to hate.

"He's right." The words were so soft-spoken that they were almost missed in the tension of the room, but the last of Cetra commanded attention from all who knew her.

"On which count, Aeris?" Vincent spoke, interjecting a degree of common sense into the discussion.

"All of them, I think." The flower girl shook her head briefly, as if listening to something inside, before raising a hand to her temple. "The Cetra...the lifestream...Mother says that the other Sephiroth...he's still in there, underneath it all. He could contact this one. And did. The Cetra felt the connection."

"And they did not feel like sharing this with us because?" Zack, with his own practicality, and Aeris dropped her eyes, staring at her boots for a spare few seconds.

"They...um...thought we knew. And felt's the wrong word – they facilitated the connection. They did it, as much as either Sephiroth did."

"Wonderful." Zack muttered, shaking long dreadlocks of hair. "Someday we will iron out that little thing called communication."

"With a bunch of people who barely put two sentences together on a /good/ day...yeah, that's going to happen real soon, Zack. /Real/ soon." Reno, again. Predictably.

"There's always hope."

"Gentlemen! And I do shudder to use the term. Can we hold off the pointless bickering for all of five minutes?" The blonde woman shifted in her chair as she spoke, checking figures on her clipboard, multitasking to the last.

"Legion. He called them a legion, a force beyond anything you have seen, beyond any of you. He was...quite descriptive about that point. Very emphatic." Finished, Sephiroth began, or rather resumed, a dedicated study of his hands and the leather gloves that encased them.

"Legion. Wonderful. Why don't we ever get hordes of enemies who call themselves by sweet, unassuming names, like the Reign of Inefficiency or Horde of Most Weak and Terrified?"

"Because, Reno, then they'd take all the good names and there'd be none left for you." Elena responded sweetly, with a smile forced on her face. It looked unnatural, and her humor was dry, the joke delivered with the speed of reflex rather than genuine humor.

"Keep that up, Elena, and I'll start to think that you don't like me after all."

Elena twitched, tension running high in her and in the room as well, and Vincent could see that this would not stop of its own accord.

"Reno. You're not helping."

The redhead responded with a cheeky, if resigned, grin.

"Right, Boss."

Vincent did not reply to that; it would do no good to encourage him and Cloud had begun to speak.

"We need to mobilize what forces we have, and we need to do it now."

"We're running very short on time, though." Cloud said, emphasizing the fact with the speed that he gathered his sword and started to his feet.

Zack grinned at that comment, and the smile that stretched across his face was full of nothing but confidence.

"That's convenient, then, that there are two of us, isn't it?"

"Zack...?"

"It's not that difficult – I'll go with you, Spike, to head up the attack against the space bitch's troops while –"

Cloud caught on. "Zack....that, is the other Zack...can command the other divisions. You, I mean, he, can sweep around – go through anything you need to – to come around and meet us, trapping the main force. Take Vincent with you, although the city is much the same as the one you knew."

They turned to look at Zackery, and he shrugged. "I'll do it. Should be easy enough to pretend to be myself, after all."

"You'll take over part of Spike's troops, just in case. And I'll go incognito not to confuse them. That front needs to hit hard, and, no offense, I'm better than you are. We'll lead mine and half of Spike's –"

Cloud interrupted him again, and Vincent could see how they worked, interacting with each other, building off of each other to form a plan.

"Not half. The force will be so large that we'll need something more effective than just a pincer. Tifa, you'll go with Reno – you two know the slums better than any of us - and take the first and third divisions of Zack's troops. You'll also take a number of SOLDIERS – twenty firsts and twenty seconds."

Reno nodded. "Swift and strong. We'll surprise the bitch."

"The rest of the SOLDIERS will report to their usual positions. Rude, Elena; I want you to take a division from my troops – the ones that will travel with Zack and me – and use them to defend the plate as best you can. Stay around the Shinra tower; they'll come here first when they reach the plate."

Elena's hand twitched at her side; Vincent was sure she fought against the desire to raise it, and raised her voice instead. "Why will they attack the tower? Rape and pillage is more Jenova's style."

Looking at the storm outside, it was long moments before Cloud answered. "Because /he's/ leading this attack. And he hates Shinra almost as much as Jenova does. They'll come here first when they reach the plate."

Cloud looked as though he wanted to say more, but frantic footsteps pounding outside, followed by the harsh sounds of the door to the room being thrown open, interrupted him.

"Sir! General Cloud, sir!" The man, a radio operator, saluted Cloud swiftly, and nodded to the rest of the room, nearly out of breath, gasping at his words. "We've just received radio contact with General Kisaragi, sir! She said that she'll" and the man began to read off of the sheet he held, "'deal with the incoming from the northern beach, but you'll have to deal with what's already made landfall by yourself.'"

"We've been trying to raise Captain Highwind for a while sir, but the messages have been garbled at best. When we did manage to get through, he said he'd do his best but the storm's keeping him mostly grounded."

"Keep trying. Put out the emergency broadcast system – all residents of the slums are to evacuate to the plate; Shinra tower if possible. Reeve, you'll have to deal with it."

Scarlet looked up and muttered. "An occupation by the common folk. Lovely."

"Deal, Scar." Reeve dealt her a look that was as edged as a knife blade, and she quieted under the swift and sharp force of it. Difficult to remember, with all the time the President had spent under of guise of a bumbling stuffed toy, that he could be as cruel? forceful? as the rest of them.

Still, that must have been a happy façade, almost like a game, hiding behind a creature that was more like a creation of a child's innocent mind than anything else. Vincent wondered if Reeve ever missed it.

"Alright. Everyone, try not to get killed." Cloud flicked his gaze to the ground before looking at each of them in turn.

"Let's move out."

----

It was a blur of men shouting and running and equipment being collected and distributed. Noise and light formed a chaos that subsided far more quickly than Zackery would have expected it too.

He whistled, long and low, in appreciation. "You people are...efficient."

The leader of the Turks, the man the others called Vincent, looked at him and Zack suppressed a double take when he say the man's eyes; a cold, disturbing shade of red.

The man gave off 'cold, aloof and lethal' in a way he'd only seen Seph do when he was pissed or at the board meetings he had attended with him, before he'd 'accidentally' spilled coffee over Hojo /and/ Rufus and was /politely/ told that his valuable time was better spent elsewhere.

Vincent had the looks and the style to pull it off damned well, but he talked to the Turks the way Tseng had; softly, casually, and with pride.

"We've had to learn to be. Jenova's armies are less than forgiving, particularly when they are at our doorstep, clamoring for admittance."

Zack restrained a retort of 'so you /can/ speak' and instead settled for checking his materia, with growing appreciation. Say what you will about the future, they gave out some nicely high-level shiny rocks.

He started at an explosion that rocked the slums they were descending toward; softly, an inhuman roar floated up to meet them.

"What the hell...?"

Vincent barely paused, forging ahead. "Battle has already joined. We have little time."

Another roar, louder now, and now, running forward, they were getting close enough that they could begin to hear they screams of the soldiers. And there was a shuffling, snuffing noise in the maze of metal around them; heavy breathing and sound of inhuman footsteps padding closer and Zackery knew what it was to be hunted then.

"No time." Vincent said softly, and drew his gun. "He knows we're here."

"What?" Really, would it have been too much to ask to be briefed, moreso than the orders of 'go here with this guy and kill this'?

"He's sent them to meet us." And the dark-haired man raised his voice, shouting to the men. "Assume formation."

"It's come."

----

Tifa was feeling many things right now; tired and irritable and confused rounded out the top of the list, but 'covered in grime and slime and gore and oh god what is that I think it just moved' was a definite contender, edging its way up into higher and higher positions still.

Happy and collected were not near the list. Especially not with the way the asshole Turk was smirking at her, really it wasn't her fault that she'd slipped finishing off whatever monster of the week that thing was.

Smirking was the wrong word. Leering was a much better description of the expression on Reno's face, and damnit, if she'd /known/ that she was going into the /sewers/ she would /not/ have worn a /white/ shirt.

Fuck. And the SOLDIERS were staring, too, although the sideways glances they gave at least attempted to be polite. All men. Why were there no women in SOLDIER? Why did she have to be stuck in a stinking sewer with an asshole Turk and a now less than substantial shirt (bra notwithstanding, it was still damned embarrassing) with a crew that was almost entirely male? Why?

Because, Tifa Lockhart, the brunette told herself firmly as she picked herself up out of the muck, scraping grime off of her gloves as she did so, there is a cosmic force in this world, and it most decidedly /hates/ you.

At least the newest group of monsters gave the SOLDIERS something else to do.

"Well, Lockhart, you're looking –"

She cut Reno off with a violent hiss. "If the next word out of your mouth is, in any way, shape or form, 'perky', I will rip off your balls and shove them down your throat."

And amazingly, astoundingly annoyingly, the Turk continued to...to.../smirk/ at her, and whispered back:

"But, in those moments before you ripped my balls off – that would almost be getting some, wouldn't it?"

She was going to kill him. Screw needing him to watch her back, she was going to kill him.

And Reno kept talking as he aimed a spell at a snake that was both bright yellow and twelve feet long. "Why, Tifa, I never knew you felt that way about me. Really, I'm flattered, and if we weren't fighting for our lives I'd return your attentions."

Correction: she would /maim/ him, horribly, leaving a tattered wreck of a man, until he begged her to kill him, and them she would laugh. Death was too good for him. It was too quick.

----

The sky had become a maelstrom of scales and flesh and blood. Crackling lightning raced from cloud to cloud, natural and materia-cast. The screams of the dead and the dying echoed in the turbulent air, nearly drowned out by crashes of thunder.

Really, if it wasn't for the fact that the odds were against them and not getting better, and that she had no idea what Midgar's position was instead of likely Very Screwed, and they hadn't been able to establish radio contact with the old bastard of a pilot, Cid, again, or with Midgar /at all/ after their initial, frantic message, and that /she was on a plane/ and apt to kill the monsters with projectile vomit...

If one were to remove those factors, Yuffie was having the time of her life.

Something that looked like a cross between the late Heidegger and a very big and scaly chocobo flew at her, mouth open and gaping, displaying a full set of large and undoubtedly sharp teeth.

"Show-off sideshow freak!" Yuffie spat at it, the words followed by a flick of her wrist that launched the Conformer in an arc that neatly decapitated the bird-monster-thing, the body and head slamming into the side of the plane before tumbling to the ground below. The ninja had a brief second to gloat in that victory before the proximity of another monster, a two-headed blob of flesh with bat-like wings, became to close to ignore.

But the conformer snaked its way through the air, smacking back into her hand hard enough to sting, and she cast as soon as the weapon was in her grip, power thrumming through her as the temperature suddenly dropped, ice coalescing in the air in front of her, around the beast, freezing it solid. It fell to the ground, light reflecting on the faceted ice.

Pretty.She thought abstractly and distractedly, wanting, for some reason, to spin around in victory. Spinning around and nearly falling over wasn't something she could do now, though, if only because she was on a /plane/, in the /sky/, and would fall over or vomit. Possibly both.

She used to do that with Avalanche, though, after their battles; to piss Cid off (not that that took much), and make Vincent stare at her (not that Vincent didn't stare at /everyone/, stupid Vampire Valentine) and Cloud sigh, counterpoint to Tifa's soft chuckling, and Aeris's laughter, a sound that was soft but carrying, like the bells of the temples home in Wutai, ringing in the air to bring the people to pray.

She'd missed the Ancient when she'd died, more than she'd thought she would, because she hadn't known her /that/ long, really, and ninja were supposed to be used to people they cared about dying.

Fuck that. Her father certainly didn't take well to her mother's dying.

When she saw the flower girl again, in Midgar during a meeting, she'd jumped over the table, spilling Reno's drink all over his shirt, an act that had merited some choice words from the Turk, and had seized the older girl in a hug. Afterwards, she'd asked her if she was a clone.

You never could be too sure these days.

One of the SOLDIERS screamed out her name and title, followed by an order to duck, allowing the man to charge forward and slice through yet another monster, this one in the shape of a bizarre flying crab. It was a wonder how Hojo managed never got tired of coming up with completely nonsensical monster designs, she thought as she chased the man's strike with a Bolt 3 casting, the bolts ripping through several monsters in the area.

"Sir." The man, a Second class, saluted, amazingly, and Yuffie wanted to hit him for bothering.

"Save it..."

At least he had the grace to look slightly sheepish. "Johanssey, Sir. I've just spoken with one of the second's from the pilot's cabin – they say that one of our engines has been hit. The pilots don't think we'll be able to stay aloft much longer.

Yuffie tried to squelch the part of her that was currently rejoicing with cries of "Ground! Yes! Ground!" as this was clearly Bad News. They needed to get to Midgar, to the others, and try to organize some sort of counter against this horde.

But still, even if they somehow got to the Shinra tower, with radio communications nearly nonexistent because of the storm and all the shit Jenova was throwing at them, there was no guarantee that they could even find them. Or be of any real help mired in the thick of it.

The monsters just kept coming, from the sea and the sky, but everything had a source, a root.

And around her arm and in the Conformer, the two red materia glimmered in the crackling lights, shining and more precious than any stone.

Assuming they still worked, of course. She hadn't used either in a long time, one in nearly a year, because there had been no cause to, not with Cloud and the others strong enough, and nothing the space bitch had cooked up since then had been worth the trouble to cast Knights of the Round.

Well, Sephiroth would be, but since she hadn't seen the walking puppet since he became...well, a walking puppet, so that point was fairly moot.

They would work because at this point, they were running out of options.

"Tell the pilots to do their best. And to fly us to the north of Midgar. First priority has now become the protection of this plane, over anything and anyone else."

The SOLDIER voiced the surprise and question in his eyes.

"/North/ of Midgar? Sir?"

Yuffie grinned, wild and vicious. "North. To kill an army you cut off its supply lines, SOLDIER Johanssey. Didn't they ever teach you that in training?"

This would work. It /had/ to.

----

Cloud saw him right away, and froze when that curtain of silver hair filled his sight. How could he not, after all, see and recognize the man that his life had revolved around for so many days and nights, so many years?

Even if he isn't really a /man/ now, is he? Isn't really /human/ at all?

His heart hurt, as if the familiar length of metal the man held was thrust through him already – after all, it had been there before.

The man was dressed in black leather that was cut and torn, remnants of a once proud uniform that had cloaked a once proud man. His silver hair was dirty and matted but still long, the ends ragged, as if he had shorn them himself, with a knife.

Or a sword. The weapon he handled was exquisite, a finely crafted and cut piece of metal, its immense length making it look almost unwieldy. But the man handled it with grace and precision, barely looking as he used it to cut into the body of an attacking soldier, too young and brave and stupid to know better. Pieces, the man was cut into pieces and they tumbled to the dirty ground, the best burial the soldier would get.

And still, the blond could not move.

Somewhere in the blur of battle and storm behind him he heard Zack screaming at him, words, his name, but it was so faint, and from so far away. Everything was so far away, and he couldn't find his way to where they were.

In Nibelheim, the children were warned never to wander away from the town at night, for the dark paths of the mountain woods were impossible to tread in the dark. There were no forests in Midgar save the tall trees of buildings, metal and concrete, and maybe that was more than enough as the man moved forward.

The man's lips curved upward in a smile, and there was nothing sane about it, a wild rictus grin, like some horrible joker, as if the man – SephirothnotSephirothJenovaSephiroth- found all of this funny, and stretched his amusement cruelly across a face he loved.

This was so much worse than before. He hadn't realized how much more it could hurt.

Burning, his eyes were flat and hollow and blazing green with the /other/, the stranger, alien in more than name. The man spoke, and his voice was dark and low; Cloud had heard it before, but there had been love in the velvet of it, and the memory of callused fingertips and coaxing touches in the dark assailed the blond. Now, everything he remembered was twisted and warped, and it hurt /so much/, he couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't think.

"Hello, love."

Oh god.

"Did you miss me?"

Oh god no.

----

Author's Notes –

1. I am terribly sorry about the long delay for this chapter. A hell of a lot of stuff got in the way. Still, terribly sorry.

2. I may, at some point in time, redo this chapter, as it does not satisfy me. It annoys, me, actually. Or I may not.


	10. Chapter 10

All disclaimers applicable.

----

Xehorista Tora

----

Chapter Ten

----

They had left, frantic words and a frantic hug and kiss goodbye from Zack, and she and Reeve were the only ones in the room. The president was frantically calling officers and workers, trying to prepare Midgar for the worst crisis it had seen since Meteor.

All that reconstruction; rebuilding houses and shops and /lives, and now it might all get swept away by the oncoming rush of Jenova's troops, as inevitable and strong as the sea.

It wasn't fair; that they all work so hard to have it be destroyed time and time again. And how tiring.

She would do something that nothing could take away. Something permanent.

And the voices of the Cetra in her head rose to a fever pitch, a chorus of screams and cries as they felt the onrushing force, felt Jenova in all the monsters, felt /him/.

/Him. He's here, already. Oh Cloud, Cloud, you must be so /tired/. /

But that didn't matter to the blond; that had never mattered to the blond. In the face of that courage, and that strength, how could she do less?

"Aeris?"

Reeve's voice startled her; she snapped her head up to stare at him as he put the phone down and addressed her again.

"Aeris, I've called Tabitha; she's already begun assembling medical backup and is coming up to meet you and take you to them."

She smiled at him, soft and sure. "Thank you, Reeve. I'll go out and meet her up."

He nodded, already turning away, picking up the phone and dialing again, speaking in hurried, harsh tones.

"Be careful."

She nodded, but he wasn't even looking at her, concentration bent elsewhere. He didn't lift up his head as she moved to the door and left. The hallway was dark and empty, the only light the flickering lightning from the turbulent sky, and maybe she could just slip off now, and avoid Tabitha entirely?

"Leaving?"

Too late. The woman had come up silently behind her, and you really wouldn't think someone could sneak around in a lab coat that brightly colored, but somehow she had managed.

"Tabitha, I..." The Ancient stopped, unsure of what to say, of what she could say. The doctor held up a slim hand, forestalling her, and spoke.

"I'm hardly stupid, Aeris, and I've gotten to where I am in life by...well, by several methods, most of which you don't need to hear about. But among the intimidation and the ruthless studying and all of that – I have no delusions about what I can and /cannot/ do."

She dropped her hand and stared at it, as if remembering the things she would not speak of.

"Maybe Hojo could clone and bring back the lifestream essence of a person. Maybe I can't, and maybe I won't go that far. I reconstructed Zack and Sephiroth's bodies, but you brought them back, really."

"The planet brought them back."

"Did the planet bring you back?" Aeris stepped back, physically taken aback, and the other woman laughed.

"I like you, Aeris. But when you first came back I had no particular attachment to you. That helped. Being a doctor; a scientist; that also helped. It was easier for me to see what the others overlooked because of joy or just not enough scientific and medical training."

She took off her glasses and tucked them into a pocket in her coat, fingers rubbing at her eyes. Without the glasses, it was much easier to see the dark circles that ringed them.

"I've watched many people die. I've been unable to keep many people from dying. The dead do not come back to life without a great deal of effort, Aeris. Perhaps they shouldn't come back at all. You walked out of the grave and into Midgar in the clothes you died in. And I did nothing to make that happen. You did everything."

There was a slight shiver to the doctor's hands as she spoke, and it echoed in her voice, a soft shudder rippling through the precise speech.

"It can't be.../It's not that easy./ I knew you were hiding something, Aeris. I think everyone did. The only credit I give myself is that I figured out what you were hiding. Going home?"

Home. Sunlight streaming through windows, and the soft scent of flowers lingering like the promise of a forgotten god in the air of the church. The tang of metal and smoke and underneath it, when the wind was right, the salty smell of the sea.

Her mother's voice – both her mothers – and by the planet, how could she deal with losing her daughter twice. How much could someone take before they broke?

Following a dream and failing, gaining love and losing - /killing/ - it, torture and death and pain and war and so many nightmares...Cloud lived through all this, and kept living, kept surviving.

How could she do anything less? She couldn't be weak now, wouldn't be weak now, not when there were so many people losing so much more, and still fighting despite it all.

The flower girl from the Midgar slums clenched her fists at her sides and looked at Tabitha, speaking what she knew to be true.

"I've always been home. But I can't stay. I want to, and I'm scared to leave. I...I don't want to leave again." Her voice broke there, for all that she tried to stay firm, but she couldn't stop now.

"But there are people I love here, and they're worth everything. Please understand that."

The doctor's eyes closed once, as if in pain or grief, but they were clear when she looked at the Ancient.

"I do. And I won't stop you. I will radio Zack though, because he deserves to say goodbye."

"But – "

"Goodbye, Aeris. I hope where you're going will make up for what you'll miss."

And the doctor was gone, walking away down the hall, until the shadows swallowed her bright colors. In her wake, Aeris felt a chill sweep through her, although the night was warm. It felt as though her bones were freezing, the blood crystallizing in her veins.

It felt like dying, and she knew well what dying felt like.

/don'twanttodiedon'twanttodiedon'twanttodie/

Stop. Pause. Breathe. Breathe through the darkness in the hall and the sound of fighting and dying outside and a wound in her heart that had never bled or had maybe just never stopped. She swallowed, fighting past the knot that had lodged in her throat and reached up behind her to the ribbon that held her braid tied. Faded cloth, so worn the color was beginning to dull, but it was one of the best gifts she'd ever received.

Meant so much, because it had come from him.

Already dead but still alive, and she missed him. Unwinding the ribbon from her hair, Aeris wrapped it tight around a her hand, threading the color through her fingers. She clenched her fist around it, and prayed for a strength like his, one that she'd never seen fail. One she didn't think could fail.

Stop. Pause. Breathe. And walk down the hall, one step at a time.

----

The space bitch really had pulled out all the stops. This battle was the equal, if not greater, to any he'd seen yet in the war. Well planned, and the storm wasn't helping – the certainly could have used the support of Cid's troops and planes in this fight. He hoped there was some way for them to get here, even if only a fraction of them.

Even outnumbered, their forces were just as good, and their soldiers fought with the frantic devotion of those trying to protect things other than their lives.

He couldn't see Cloud though, had lost his visual of the blond. That worried him, but then Zack sometimes felt that he was forever worried about the blond, concerned for the scrappy spiky-haired kid that he could sometimes see in the hardened fighter Cloud had become; peeking through the edges of the other when he thought no one was watching.

Worried about Cloud. Worried about Aeris. Worries about Tifa and Yuffie, Vincent and his Turks – Cloud's friends, but he'd come to think of them as his own.

Worried about Sephiroth – he would always worry about Sephiroth, no matter what the man had become, what the man had been forced to become.

And now, with so many of the people he cared about, worried about, in danger; fighting for their lives and possibly fighting each other –

/By the planet, if anyone cares to listen, let Sephiroth not be here. Let me fight him, instead of Cloud. Let anyone fight him but Cloud./

He wasn't sure that Cloud could live through that, could come out of that as anything but a shell, blue eyes dull and empty. Like in the lab, when the kid was numb and horribly, terrifyingly /not there/...he remembered that time far too well, and it was something he never wanted to see again. Cloud had come close to it, after facing Sephiroth once since Jenova took him, and Zack didn't want the blond to go through that again.

He'd never faced Sephiroth, never managed to meet up with the man in battle outside of his one, disastrous attempt at stopping the man in Nibelheim.

/But Spike stopped him, and you didn't ask how, just tried not to think about the scar by his heart, the sort of scar you get after being run through by a very fine sword held by an very fine swordsman-/

There were some things that they simply didn't speak of. It was easier that way, he thought as he ripped the Buster sword from a monster's still twitching body, to face off against the next enemy.

It was a Vessel. He hated Vessels, the poor souls that had managed to be captured, and that Jenova had killed and then kept, infiltrating the body and then killing it, giving the corpse a life of its own.

"This battle is as good as mine, you realize." It spoke in a voice like the grinding of stones. Trust Jenova to be suitably dramatic.

"That's an interesting viewpoint to have," Zack replied as he shifted stance, the buster sword held resolutely between him and the beast.

"Hojo will be so happy to have you back. He's interested in seeing how you've progressed." Now, the thing's voice sounded like another; a voice that was oil slick and cruel. Like the harsh lights of a lab and the razor of pain that a scalpel made when it cut into flesh.

But Zack forced the memory down and cocked his head, a careless grin plastered across his face. "He really ought to get a new hobby."

The Vessel grinned at him; its gums were black and teeth razor sharp. Then it attacked, a whirlwind movement far faster than anything a normal human would have been capable of. Luckily, Zack was far from a normal human, and he met the strike easily. The thing didn't have hands but claws, ridges of jointed sharpness that wouldn't have looked out of place on some insect. It pressed against his sword with inhuman strength, and sneered at him across the metal.

"You think you can stop me, all of you. Even your little Cetra thinks that anything she does will make a difference, that she can stand up to my might."

Flash of lightning and blood that had turned to ice water in his veins. Aeris.

/We need you back at the tower, they said, but there couldn't have been too much of a threat there, and you didn't even think about it, didn't think why they'd need your there when clearly you do better work out here, didn't even think and she's there./

"I'm sorry. Did I say something that upset you, my dear child?"

/She's there and you're wasting time with this filth./

He didn't reply, not to the Vessel or the voice in his head, just ripped the power from upside of him, igniting the fire materia in his armor and forcing the flames to flow down his sword blade, dancing over the metal. The Vessel shrieked and tried to retreat, but the buster sword had dug into the bony armor of its claws, and it could not remove them. This close, the heat from the fire hurt him as well, but the pain was easily drowned out by the satisfaction of watching the Vessel's skin blacken and burn. It ripped itself free, but the fire had already taken root, burning up the dead flesh despite the soft rain that had begun.

It was a twitching carcass when Zack sheathed his sword, and the smell of burning flesh remained with him as he moved toward Shinra Tower.

----

There were /everywhere, and he could barely see, could barely think, could barely /breathe/ through the crush of bodies cloaked in scale and claw.

Zackery had been through life as a SOLDIER and years of war, against humans and monsters, and he could say with certainty that it had never been as bad as this. This constant rush of enemies, like waves breaking upon the rocks of the shore. But he was surviving, was adapting to a type of combat that moved faster and harsher than anything he'd seen.

If this was what the war was like, Zack thought as he speared his sword through the middle of a monstrous wolf, then it was amazing they had an army left at all.

The wolf-creature on his sword snapped its jaws feebly at him, howls of rage growing fainter as it died. It was horrible to listen to, and became even worse as they turned into screams of pain, as another monster – something with scales and beady eyes and far, far too many claws - tore through the upper half of the wolf's carcass, front two legs, pincer-like claws red with blood.

/Ah, hell. And I was doing so well./

He could try to pull his sword free, but he already knew that there wasn't enough time. The best option would be to let go of the hilt, avoid the initial strike and then take it down without his sword. Not an enjoyable task, surely, as all he had were a few knives and his materia, and the armor-like scales on that thing looked as tough as dragonhide.

Or, he could stand there like an idiot while the monster's head very nearly exploded, the force of the blow knocking it out of its lunge, to land in a twitching mess by his feet.

/What was that, and who do I thank/

A glare caught the corner of his gaze, and he turned to see the leader of the Turks – Valentine, his name was – lift his gun to line up another shot.

/Holy Fucking Sniper./ The man was good, perched on a railway and nearly invisible in the shadows, better than anyone he'd ever seen or heard of, and he's seen some /damned/ good gunmen at Shinra.

/What do you have to live though, to get that good/ Endless fighting, day in and day out, not stopping to breathe or to think – that would make you that good. It would also make you insane.

He'd seen it happen, often enough, during the Wutain war. Soldiers and SOLDIERS simply stopped, broke apart and broke down, like machines that just couldn't work anymore.

Broken down. Machines you couldn't fix. People could break like that, fall apart into so many pieces you couldn't hope to piece them back together again.

It was one of the more peculiar aspects of /this/ war/this/ army. From all accounts – the file they'd given Seph and him, and the personal descriptions from the other commanders and other soldiers – these people had been fighting this war for one hell of a long time. Long enough to watch their cities burn and their loved ones die. War that long, that crazed would kill you, even if you managed to survive it. Despite that, the morale among the troops was by far the highest he'd ever seen.

Peculiar. Hardened fighters, the lot of them, but they fought with the ready invincibility of those who had never seen others die, and the eager glint in their eyes was like what he'd seen, often enough, in the eyes of green recruits, fresh from whatever backwater town they'd "escaped" from, ready to fight, ready to die.

It didn't make much sense, but at the same time, it made all the sense in the world, when viewed in the proper perspective.

/And what perspective is that, Zack? The perspective of one who's been dragged forward in time to discover that his best friend and commanding officer goes fucking nuts, and burns down an entire town? Nearly kills you, to be 'killed' by your /other/ best friend, a trooper who happens to be in love with him for as long as you've known the kid? Enter in five /years/ of "fun" with Hojo, getting killed, getting resurrected, having Seph get possessed – again – by an evil space whore masquerading as his mom and by the Planet, I'm amazed anyone in this damn army is sane./

Because he was a striking example of sanity. Right. Someday, Zackery was going to start /winning/ the arguments he had with himself. Someday.

Still, at least Seph was taking it well. As well as the man took anything, and Zackery had long ago learned how to interpret Sephiroth's varying degrees of 'stick-up-ass' expressions.

/Monster. Hello. Could we pay attention here, please? Because I'd like to live a little while longer, if that is okay with you./

He could have hit himself, but it appeared that the monsters before him were itching for the opportunity, and Zackery didn't see why he should deprive them of the chance, when they clearly wanted it so badly. Tightening his grip on the Buster sword, he charged into the throng once more, using the weight and heft of the sword to cleave his way through the masses around him. It was like trying to walk through water, and he wondered how many of the troops were still alive. Around him were the screams of the dying and the silence of the dead and the constant roar of the monsters echoing the thundering rumbles in the clouds.

The storm was only lighting and thunder right now, fires in the sky, but it couldn't be long before the rain followed, dousing them all and making this fight only more difficult to navigate. The rains would turn places already coated with blood and gore into slick surfaces, just waiting for the unwary soldier to slip. In a fight like this, that would mean death.

In a fight like this, so many things could mean death.

"Sir! General Zack, Sir!" A trooper on chocobo raced up to him, clad in a uniform that was several sizes to large and looking ridiculously small next to the semi-automatic he was carrying. The black bird warked nervously, shifting its feet.

By the Planet, they were all so young. Despite himself, Zack found himself thinking of Cloud, of the too-small, scrappy blond kid that he knew, the one that was so desperate to please, to prove himself.

Sometimes, he wondered just where his friend was in this new Cloud, where the hardened warrior was hiding the sweet kid he knew so well. In some ways, the fact that he couldn't find him, could barely see him in the man at all, was far more frightening than the thought of what Hojo had done and all the terrible skill the blond had.

"Report, trooper!" He barked out, pulling power from within himself to cast at the same time, the Bolt 3 ripping outwards, tearing across the concrete and neatly electrocuting several enemies that were attempting to break through the fragile line they'd been forming.

"It's a message from Shinra Tower, sir! General Strife's other commander has been called back to the tower and you're requested to head to there position as backup, sir! The storm's messing with some of the personal radios, and you'll travel faster with the chocobo." The kid dismounted, swinging out of the saddle and rushing forward, running up to help fortify the line without being told.

Young, but they were all certainly well trained. From the corner of his eye he saw Valentine signal him over, a flash of crimson as the gunman moved out of the shadows, still firing furiously. The bird was just as well-trained as the soldiers, and despite its fear it moved swiftly forward on his signal as he guided it toward the sniper, the chocobo jumping through the rubble with skill.

"Valentine!" The gunman's only response was to reload his firearm, a large black gun that looked damned difficult to wield, particularly one-handed.

"Turk! What's wrong?"

"I need you to get me to a higher vantage point – I can only do so much from down here. A better position is required to cover the troops holding the line."

The other man nodded. "Understood. Get on, we can take you further up some of this rubble. I've got to get to Cloud's section; they've called back the other Zack to Shinra Tower." Vincent jumped up behind him in response, and the bird shifted under the added weight but was otherwise calm.

The bird leaped forward, jumping from stone to stone as the gunman replied.

"That is not good news, if Jenova's army has already reached the center of the plate in such force as to require Zack's help."

"I was given only so much information," the SOLDIER replied, "but yeah, it's probably not good."

"It's not going to get any better, you realize. I'm worried about my Turks, true, but unless the flow of enemy stops the army as a whole won't be able to hold out forever. We are vastly outnumbered and the situation is only worsening with time."

Zackery tried not to gape at the man riding behind him. "What the hell are you saying? All this is pointless, then?" He reined in the chocobo; they'd reached the highest vantage point possible and from here the view answered his question for him. Stretched before them was a fierce battle, the soldiers using the rubble of the slums to fortify there own defenses and hold a tenuous line, preventing the enemy from approaching any closer to the central areas of Midgar and up the plate.

From what he understood, this wasn't the first battle that Midgar had seen, although it was probably the largest (he hoped so; the thought that battles like this were a common experience made him ill) and the destruction from the prior skirmishes had never been completely cleared away.

But the flow of monsters seemed endless and they had only so many men. The soldiers were so brave, suicidal almost, and they dashed forward to support and hold the line, preventing Jenova's army from rushing around and flanking them. He hold pick out spots of yellow: chocobo riders dashing from place to place, often plowing through the enemy, allowing the other troops enough distraction to gain back precious ground.

Brave and well-fought and eventually doomed; Valentine was right. They couldn't keep this up forever and with enough time they'd have to retreat back to the plate, defending the points of access.

"Not pointless, no. Nothing in this war has ever been pointless." The man took aim and fired: in the mayhem below, a monster's chest neatly exploded from the impact, saving the lives of at least two men.

"We fight because it is all we can do. It will be enough because it will have to be enough. You should move; Cloud will be needing your support."

The man turned away from him then, the storm's strong winds blowing his cape outward; the bright crimson held disturbing similarity to fresh blood.

Zack shrugged away the image and turned his chocobo, spurring the bird toward Cloud's position. As he headed away from the front lines the sounds of battle receded, although troops still rushed frantically toward the front lines. Surreal, how the sounds of fighting and dying receded, drowned out by the rush of the storm above and the rain that had begun to fall; softly now, but it couldn't be long until it became a downpour.

Thunder cracked overhead, and lighting lit up the night, illuminating the rubble and the second front of battle that he was fast approaching.

/They're holding this one as well...it doesn't look like the enemy would have been able to get through at all, save through the pipes...but Reno and Cloud's friend took forces to prevent that...so why would the other Zack be called back to Shinra tower/

Lightning again, and any questions he might have had were cut off as he caught sight of the two men before him. He recognized Cloud – he'd know the kid anywhere, no matter how he changed or what weapon he wielded – but the other man he only saw from behind, and the lighting in the slums was terrible, a combination of the few street lights that were working and the lightning overhead. If he wasn't a SOLDIER, with all that entailed, he likely wouldn't have found the two at all.

But Zackery was a SOLDIER, and a good one, and he knew how to read a battle, especially one between the two of the people he knew best in the world.

/Are either of them really yours anymore/

And there he was: silver hair like the tattered remnants of a once-proud banner, back held straight and strong, hands sure about his sword. His garments were ripped and torn and his armor dented and tarnished, but they were still as unmistakable as the nicked and weathered belt he himself wore.

/Seph/

And then he stepped forward, moving closer to Cloud, and the illusion fell apart, disintegrating. This Sephiroth moved with an odd sort of grace, but it was wrong, as disjointed as a mannequin being forced to dance. Zackery was used to watching the man move, could count time by the beat of his footsteps before a sword strike or shiver of magic rent the air, but that remembrance was akin to a flow of steps as smooth as running water and this was horribly wrong in comparison.

At the sight, it was all he could do not to throw up. He hadn't even seen the man's face, and already he knew this thing for a monster.

----

Sometimes it was amazing what Cloud Strife had survived.

He'd survived things he didn't think anyone could, didn't think anyone deserved to, because sometimes the hardest thing to do was keep going, keep /living/ even though everything was blasted and dead and the ground shook where he stood under the pressure of the presence of the life of him.

This was living, this was surviving, this was /existing, when all the others failed, day and day out, as hard as breathing and as difficult as drowning.

The sky and the smoke blew into his lungs, until all he could smell was the storm and the faint scent that accompanied a materia casting, like ozone now, although not always. Sometimes it was sky and salt and sea, and he'd never felt further than home. The sky was dark, but the dirty leather of the other man's coat was darker, and the flashes of lightning paled in comparison of the matted but still glorious strands of silver hair.

Cloud Strife had survived many things, and he knew, with all the certainty of despair, that he could not survive this.

He couldn't do this, couldn't fight him, not again/not again/. Jenova or not, monster or not, murderer or not, though his eyes were as dead and dull as chips of broken glass, someone within there was someone he loved.

It was amazing, to stand here, to stare into /those/ eyes, to look at /that/ face and raise his sword, shouldering the weight with a burden too heavy to carry.

He'd never wanted this. He'd never asked for any of it, and no one seemed to listen or care.

/Suck it up, Strife. Suck it up and do what you have to do./

But really, he should have known from the last time they'd met that he'd never been able to do this, not really. The last confrontation with the man who had used to be Sephiroth – he had thought that would kill him. When he came to himself, in the tent, he'd been honestly surprised to watch the steady rise and fall of his chest, to hear the soft strum of his heartbeat. Surprised to still be alive.

/He's not there anymore! It's not him, it's only her and she won't care/

"You know, love, we have a tendency to keep meeting on battlefields." A voice he remembered, soft tones that only one man had and that he dearly loved.

It wasn't fair, he thought. No one had told about this; about how you could drown with your head still far above water, and his lungs burned and ached. The scar on his chest ached, and unexpectedly, he thought of Tifa, of the scar that would its way down her chest and of the proud way she carried her memories, like her scars, on the outside, where everyone could see.

"But perhaps it's fitting, love-"

"Don't you dare call me that, Jenova." He spat out, the words an instinct, automatic defenses built up carefully in his mind, fit to whether any storm.

Jenova –

/Sephiroth, it's him it's him it's him/

- stepped closer, and Cloud felt all those battlements begin to crumble as if they were only made of sand, and look, it was raining.

He told himself, going into this battle, that he would live through this; would keep walking, keep fighting, even if that was the only part of him that survived. That he'd make his defenses hold, no matter how much it hurt.

But then Sephiroth smiled, and Cloud knew that it wouldn't be nearly enough.

Smiled, and moved, so quickly that Cloud's numbed senses couldn't even begin to react. Moved forward and Masamune wound about his own sword, the Ultima Weapon ripped out of his grip. He could only gather his senses enough to twist his grip before he lost it, wresting the Masamune out of Sephiroth's grip as well.

But Sephiroth was still smiling as he grabbed the blond's wrists and shoved him against a wall of rubble. He'd forgotten how the other man could, overshadow him, how the other man always seemed stronger, even though he'd beaten him in battle. Sephiroth was making him remember it now, and he doubted he'd be able to move, even assuming he'd be able to gather the wits to.

"Welcome home, love."

The silver-haired man's words were a whisper of heat in his ear, barely registered before the other man pressed his mouth to his. It was a gross parody of a kiss, nothing in it but an alien malice, but the memory of what it had once been was enough to burn his own heart.

/Sad, isn't it? You never really let go of what you love./

He couldn't move, didn't even think he could try, for all it would matter with the strength in Sephiroth's grip, solid as the rock and steel he was pressed against.

/Loved you once.../

And then there was the /other, the presence that made this all the stuff of his nightmares.

/...love you still. I /am/ the worst of fools./

He heard, distantly, the drumbeat rattle of thunder overhead, nearly drowned out by the roar of blood in his ears, the burning in his veins as the mako fought against Jenova's presence, an infection that was welcomed by his own Jenova cells. It was sickeningly sad, how acutely his own body was betraying him.

And then, nothing.

----

Under a sky dark with clouds and the fleeting impressions of flying bodies, and upon a damnable rocking airship, Yuffie stood, as tall and strong as she could manage. She'd asked the men to give her as much time as they could, and they'd thrown their skills and their lives into the task with the wild abandon of the near-dead or the suicidal.

Lightning lit the sky, and the ensuing thunder blared a counterpoint to one man scream – high and sharp and terrified and abruptly cut off. The heir of Wutai turned ninja turned materia-hunter turned General of the combined armies of Wutai and Shinra (so many changes, sometimes, it was hard to think where one part of her had stopped and the other began) tried to block it out and concentrate on the two red spheres she held in her hands.

In truth, they looked ridiculously tiny and delicate, baubles that glittered prettily when the light struck them. So small and yet so strong and they held the future of everyone she cared about.

And to think, Cloud had complained when she'd insisted on first pick of the summons. Clearly he was blind to her innate tactical brilliance.

Closing her eyes shut against the storm and closing her fingers tight against the materia, Yuffie reached inside herself and pulled, dragging the power out, making the magic work. It ripped at her like a wild thing, as much a beast as any of Hojo's monsters, and she fell to her knees from the force of it.

/By the Planet...gods above and below...it /hurts/./

It hurt more than she thought anything could. The summons were old and tired, but they knew her. They remembered her and they remembered this enemy, and they held all the anger and fear of the planet within them. The pain grew and built, a crescendo of feeling so intense that when it finally left her, the cessation of sensation made her feel blind and deaf, and for one startling, terrible moment she'd thought she'd failed.

But Leviathan's scales shone like quicksilver, and the swords of the thirteen knights were as bright as blades of lightning. The water serpent opened his mouth and roared, and the seas and the skies answered in turn. Even though there was darkness swarming in front of her vision, and her muscles felt dead and her bones as weak as water-

The tide was coming in, and Yuffie had never seen anything so beautiful in all the world.

----

Author's notes:

- Alright, so it may be time to rev up the Deus ex Machina count.

- "Bastard! You gave me Jenova!" should not make nearly as much sense as it does. I am ashamed of and for myself.

- Yes, let's all play spot the zombie. Someday, I think I'll write something without zombies in it, but probably not.


End file.
